


Catch a Tiger by the Tail

by Gruoch



Series: the city that never sleeps [1]
Category: Marvel Noir, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Michelle Jones, BlackCat!Peter, Discussions of Capitalism, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Homme Fatale, MJ: intrepid Bugle reporter & hardboiled private eye, Spider-Man Noir - Freeform, Spider-Woman!MJ, Uneasy Allies, a bday AU for the AU queen, murder investigation, some violence & referenced drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28570620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gruoch/pseuds/Gruoch
Summary: Felicia unclasps her purse again and pulls a photo out. She hands it across the desk.Michelle takes it, frowning down at the black-and-white picture of a smiling, dimple-cheeked girl—blonde, beautiful, young and vibrant.“Gwendolyne Maxine Stacy,” Felicia says. “Gwen, to her friends.”Michelle glances up at her. “Are you a friend, Miss Hardy?”“I like to think so. I employed her for over a year. She was a dancer at my club.”Michelle raises her eyebrows. “Was? This is Jane Doe, then.”“Yes. Her father is a police captain in Chicago. More crooked than a dog’s hind leg. But Gwen was a jewel, no matter how the papers want to paint her. She came here with big dreams of being a dancer, and some monster murdered her instead.”“And you want me to find out who,” Michelle says.***After a spree of violent murders rocks The City That Never Sleeps, the Daily Bugle’s infamous lady reporter Michelle Jones is on the hunt for the killer—the dangerously enigmatic Black Cat. But the deeper she delves into the case, the more complicated the web becomes…
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: the city that never sleeps [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127492
Comments: 317
Kudos: 103
Collections: god tier peter parker fics





	1. THE WOMAN IN WHITE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/gifts).



> Happy, happy, happy birthday dear darling seekrest! I hope you have a wonderful day and enjoy this little noir au!!<3

**NEW YORK CITY, 1933**

Michelle misses the soft knock at the frosty glass of her office door, the tapping drowned out by the noisy clacking of the typewriter keys as she rapidly hammers words to paper. This is the only time where her keen observational skills fail her—when she’s wrapped up in a hot story that needs to get to press before someone else scoops it first. The outside world dies to her then, and there’s nothing but the words flowing out of her fingertips and into the black ink.

She misses the knock but she doesn’t miss Betty Brant poking her head in through the door, an apologetic expression on her face as Michelle shoots an impatient, annoyed glare in her direction.

“Sorry to bother you, Miss Jones, but there’s a lady here to see you,” Betty says. 

Michelle straightens up in her hard-backed chair, rolling her head on her stiff neck and shaking cramps out of her fingers. She squints through the slats of the blinds drawn down over her office’s tiny window. The city beyond the glass panes is dark save for little squares of lights illuminating the windows and balconies of the building across the street. It’s late, again—no doubt Michelle is the last reporter left in the Daily Bugle’s offices, the only soul still haunting the halls save for Jameson, who is always the first to arrive and the last to leave if he departs at all, and his secretary Betty, who is likewise a near-permanent fixture of the office like the desks or the lights or the noisy electric fans.

“Tell her to come back tomorrow morning,” Michelle says, frowning at the collection of half-drunk cups of coffee on her desk. She grabs the nearest one. The coffee is stone cold and bitter, but she drinks it anyway.

Betty hesitates. “She says she’s got some information you’ll be wanting to hear about…” she drops her voice, “about a _murder._ The one with that poor girl they pulled out of the river.”

That immediately piques Michelle’s interest. She presses her fist into her palm, cracking her knuckles. “Send her in.”

Betty disappears. A moment lady, a woman steps through the door, her face partially obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. She’s draped head-to-toe in white—white fur, white satin, white diamonds. Even her hair looks white under the crackling yellow glow cast by the bare bulb hanging overhead. 

“Have a seat,” Michelle says, gesturing to the chair positioned opposite her on the other side of her spindly desk.

The woman gracefully seats herself in it, unwinding her fur stole from her shoulders and setting it in her lap. She takes off her hat next—white felt, adorned with white feathers in a white silk band—and sets it atop the fur. The face revealed is beautiful, flawless save for a long livid scar that runs from temple to chin on the left side. The scar twists like a snake as the woman smiles.

“Well, well...the Bugle’s infamous lady detective, in the flesh,” she purrs. “What an honor.”

“I’m just a reporter,” Michelle replies dismissively. 

The corner of the woman’s mouth quirks up higher as she unclasps the little hook on her handbag and takes out a silver cigarette case with mother of pearl inlays and a matching lighter.

“Don’t sell yourself short, kitten. I wouldn’t be wasting my time here if I didn’t know for a fact that you’re the very best private investigator in the city,” she says as she lights a cigarette. She blows a thin stream of smoke across the desk. “The slick dicks in trenchcoats wish they had half the talent you do, and they charge twice as much—not that the price matters. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” 

She extends a white gloved hand across the desk. “I’m Felicia Hardy.”

“I know who you are,” Michelle says, ignoring the hand. The White Widow Club and its owner are both infamous, staples of the tabloids and prestige papers alike, and equally popular with crime bosses, bootleggers, corrupt politicians and their crony cops. “I’ve written several exposés concerning your business and your...choice clientele.”

Felicia demurs, withdrawing her hand.

“My club is a sanctuary for people who have been cast out of _proper_ society, or people who would be, if their secrets came to light. People like you and me, and your charming young man, Mr. Storm,” she says pointedly. “His Broadway career is really taking off lately, isn’t it?”

Michelle narrows her eyes at her from across the desk. “What can I do for you, Miss Hardy?”

“A body was pulled out of the Hudson three days ago,” Felicia says, taking another drag off her cigarette. “A Jane Doe—whoever threw her in the river did a real number on her face. Clawed it to ribbons, like an animal. Made quite a stir in the papers.”

“I know. I wrote an article about it.”

Felicia offers Michelle a brief, brittle smile. “Yes. Only article to treat her like a real human being instead of a tragic soiled dove and the target of lurid speculation. I appreciated it.”

But Michelle isn’t interested in Felicia’s gratitude. “You have information?”

Felicia unclasps her purse again and pulls a photo out. She hands it across the desk.

Michelle takes it, frowning down at the black-and-white picture of a smiling, dimple-cheeked girl—blonde, beautiful, young and vibrant. 

“Gwendolyne Maxine Stacy,” Felicia says. “Gwen, to her friends.”

Michelle glances up at her. “Are you a friend, Miss Hardy?”

“I like to think so. I employed her for over a year. She was a dancer at my club.”

Michelle raises her eyebrows. “Was? This is Jane Doe, then.”

“Yes. Her father is a police captain in Chicago. More crooked than a dog’s hind leg. But Gwen was a jewel, no matter how the papers want to paint her. She came here with big dreams of being a dancer, and some monster murdered her instead.”

“And you want me to find out who,” Michelle says.

Felicia nods. “You’ll be handsomely rewarded for your time, of course. Money, jewelry...secrets. Not to mention what this would do for your career. Find the killer, write the story, make a name for yourself.”

Michelle looks down at the photo of the smiling girl again. “Why do you care so much?”

“My interest in this case is professional and personal. Professionally, it’s bad for business when one of your girls gets hurt bad enough to make it to the papers. Spooks the customers. They don’t wanna be in the spotlight, even in the periphery. And personally, well…” Felicia taps a red enameled fingernail against the scar on her cheek. “I don’t like men who hurt girls.”

Michelle nods. 

“Very well, Miss Hardy. What else can you tell me about her?” she asks, brisk and businesslike as she takes a notebook and pencil out of her desk drawer. “You know of anyone who’d want to hurt her? She stiff a pimp, rob the wrong John?”

“I told you she wasn’t like that,” Felicia snaps, her aloof demeanor briefly cracking. “Not that that should change anything, but Gwen was a real diamond in the rough. Worked hard, kept her nose clean. She didn’t have any enemies.”

“What about jealous lovers? In my experience when a woman gets hurt, nine times outta ten you can point the finger at a man who should be taking care of her.”

Felicia shrugs. “She had a beau. Lived way out in one of the outer boroughs—Brooklyn, maybe? Or Queens—yeah, Queens. One of the Jewish neighborhoods. I never met him, but Gwen was completely smitten with him. Said he was the man she was gonna marry.”

“Can you give me a name?”

Felicia shrugs again. “I can’t recall. Something ordinary. He was a student, I think, studying chemistry.”

Michelle taps her pencil impatiently against her notebook. “What other information can you give me? Think hard, Miss Hardy. Even a small detail could be the one to crack the case.”

Felicia taps her ruby lips thoughtfully. “There was another boy...Harry Osborn.”

“The mayor’s son?”

“That’s the one. Nice kid, comes around the club regularly and always treats the girls respectfully. In deep with some unsavory souls, however—drug dealers, mostly. Gambling debts up to his eyeballs. Owes a lotta money to the Maggia families. A bit of an embarrassment for his father—Norman Osborn ran on a law-and-order platform, as you probably remember,” Felicia says, examining her nails. “The kid’s name keeps him alive, but he’s made himself a lot of enemies. He was real sweet on Gwendy, and she was friendly with him, but never returned his affection like that. I can’t imagine him having the guts to do poor Gwen in, but maybe she’s collateral damage. He was always making a big show of wooing her.”

Michelle finishes jotting notes. “Anything else?”

“That’s all. If I dig up more bones, I’ll let you know. But for now…” Felicia takes a fat stack of crisp dollar bills out her purse. “A little incentive to take the case.”

Michelle slides the cash across her desk, dropping it into the drawer. “Thank you for stopping by, Miss Hardy.”

Felicia gets to her feet, smiling as she wraps her fur around her shoulders again and places the hat on her white-blond hair. “A pleasure. Just one last little favor—when you figure out who killed her, you tell me first before you go to the police.”

Michelle looks up at her. “What will you do with this information?”

Felicia’s smile turns cold before she pulls the brim of her hat down low over her face. “Best if you don’t know, kitten. Plausible deniability will get you far in life.”

***

Michelle perches on the edge of the building’s roof, looking out over her city. Far below, the streets are a swirl of noise and steam and car exhaust, but up here it’s quiet. A good place to think, and Michelle’s been doing a lot of thinking over the last couple of days since Miss Hardy’s late night visit to the Daily Bugle offices. The case has become something of an obsession for her now that she can place a name with the dead girl’s brutalized face, always occupying a corner of her mind even as she pursues other stories in her capacity as a reporter or swings around the city as her alter-ego. 

It’s a quiet night, but summer is coming and summer always brings the wolves out of the woodwork. Her aunt Anna always says the heat makes dogs and men go mad.

Michelle wonders what made Gwen’s killer go mad, because surely only a mad man would have done what he did to that girl. Michelle had been the first reporter on the scene, tipped off by a cop she's friendly with, when Gwen—known only as Jane Doe then—had been pulled from the soupy river water. Her corpse had been spotted by dock workers unloading a freight vessel, and at first they’d thought she was an old decrepit mannequin someone had dumped on the water. 

The reality was far worse. The body the police had pulled from the river had been mutilated beyond recognition, the face and torso shredded like ribbons. Several of the cops had lost their breakfasts at the horrific sight, and Michelle’s photographer had quit on the spot. Even Michelle, who’d seen plenty of the evil the city was capable of both during her time as a reporter and during her after-hours activities, had felt queasy as she’d jotted down notes and made detailed sketches in her notebook.

Her inquiries to the police hadn’t been fruitful. In short order, they’d dismissively tagged the deceased girl as a prostitute and their theories about the perpetrator of her murder had swiftly descended into the realm of absurdity, with several speculating that a tiger or other big cat must have escaped from some eccentric’s private menagerie and mauled the girl. 

Michelle had seen a lot of stupidity and laziness from the cops over the years, but that theory had to take the cake. It was immediately obvious to her that the predator that had killed the girl had been the most dangerous kind of all—the kind that wears suits and hats and thinks of themselves as the pinnacle of evolution. Even if Miss Hardy hadn’t shown up with her stacks of cash, Michelle would still be in hot pursuit of this killer. If she shares any sympathies with Felicia Hardy, it’s her hatred for men who hurt women and children. The only thing Michelle despises more are the people who let them get away with it.

Which brings her here, to the rooftop of a sooty tenement building in Hell’s Kitchen, in pursuit of clues that will lead her to a killer.

The radio embedded in her mask crackles to life, pulling her from her thoughts.

“Yoo-hoo, Spidey,” Johnny’s cheerful, disembodied voice calls into her ear. “Hope I’m not catching you in the middle of rearranging some crook’s teeth.”

Michelle smiles. “No. I’m chasing a tiger tonight.”

“Oh, how thrilling,” Johnny drolly replies. Michelle can hear the engine of his beloved hotrod-red Grand Prix roaring in the background. “Will you be home for dinner, darling? I’m heading over to that fabulous little place in Chinatown to get some chop suey. You know the one—with the fat little smiling Peke always waddling under the tables looking for scraps. So charming. Do you think we should get a dog?”

“We can barely keep a houseplant alive, J,” Michelle says with another smile as she crawls down the side of the building. “And yes, I’ll be home. I just have to run one more errand.”

“Yes, yes, your tiger awaits. Well, happy hunting, love. I’ll keep the dinner hot.”

“You’re a dear, J,” Michelle murmurs, reaching the window she’s seeking.

She crouches upside down against the crumbling brick of the building’s edifice and peers through the wavy glass. The small apartment beyond is pitch black and silent, the roommate who had shared this space with Gwen having packed up and gone back to her mother’s house in Albany after the murder. 

_Smart girl,_ Michelle thinks as she sticks a palm to the glass and slides the window open. She loves this city with her whole heart, but it has sharp teeth and an endless hunger. It’s a relief to think at least one vulnerable soul has escaped its claws.

She slips silently into the apartment, creeping across the ceiling, her senses pricked for any sign of habitation. After a moment, satisfied she’s alone, she drops lightly to the floor.

She feels along the wall until she finds the light switch, flipping it up. A single bare bulb hanging overhead flickers weakly to life, casting a sickly yellow glow over the tiny room. Michelle looks around—there isn’t much to see, just a small kitchen with an old, rusty stove and a battered table with a pair of equally battered chairs. The table is covered in a white-and-red checked tablecloth, the only bit of brightness in this damp, dim abode.

A vase full of limp, wilted roses sits on the center of the table. Michelle reaches for the small card tied to the neck of the vase, working it free and opening it.

 _To Gwendy, all my love forever and always, P_ , the card reads. 

Michelle folds the card and slips it into a small pouch on her belt before crossing the kitchen and heading into the bedroom.

She switches on the lamp set on a small table beside the doorway, her eyes narrowing. The bedroom is nearly as spartan as the kitchen, just a pair of narrow beds pushed against opposite walls and a single dresser, but it immediately gives Michelle an unsettled feeling. 

She walks over to the dresser. There’s a set of picture frames standing on top of it, but strangely they’re all empty. 

_Maybe the roommate took the photos,_ Michelle muses, but she makes a mental note of it anyway.

She turns around, her eyes narrowing as she spots something even more curious—a single rose lying on the pillow of one of the beds. Michelle walks over and carefully picks the rose up. Unlike the flowers in the vase in the kitchen, this rose is fresh, the bright red petals still damp and plump, like someone had just set it there that same day.

Michelle slowly twirls it by the stem, frowning. 

She feels a tingle run up her spine before she can ponder the rose’s presence further, a half-second before the lightbulb in the lamp makes a soft popping sound and the apartment is thrown into darkness.

The tingle turns into a screaming warning.

Michelle ducks, crouching down, feeling the breeze of a fist passing a hair’s width over her head. She spins around, lashing out with a leg, but her attacker gracefully leaps over it, vaulting onto the bed.

Michelle whips around, jerking back as a black-gloved hand swipes at her face. She somersaults backwards, heart-pounding with adrenaline, eyes wide behind the lenses of her mask. She gets the impression of a man’s broad-shouldered figure standing over her, a blacker silhouette against the darkness of the room, and a pair of bright green goggles shining out of its face, reflecting like a cat’s eyes caught in headlights at night. Then the intruder is on her again in a flurry of fists and elbows.

Michelle dances backwards out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, feeling a dew of perspiration break out across her face under her mask. Whoever this guy is, it’s clear he’s not an average burglar looting the joint—every strike and move he makes is executed with ruthless force and precision, and it’s only Michelle’s superior speed and reflexes that keep her out of his reach.

Or nearly so. She dodges a low swipe only for her attacker to feint and come at her from the other side, landing a lightning fast blow along her upper arm. Michelle stumbles, hissing as pain flares along her arm from shoulder to elbow and the coppery scent of blood fills the small room.

 _Enough of this,_ she thinks angrily. She whips her uninjured arm up and fires a web at her assailant. It’s a literal shot in the dark, but she trusts her other senses to keep her aim true.

She feels a moment of triumph as the man jerks backwards, his fist thumping against the wall as her webbing snags his arm and pins it there securely.

“Are you ready to behave now?” Michelle asks, straightening up and wincing as pain stabs through her own arm. She can feel warm blood dripping off her fingertips, but she can’t see how bad the damage is in the dark.

The two luminescent green lenses stare at her silently. Then the intruder raises his free hand. Michelle sees a sharp metallic glint at the end of his gloved fingers before he slashes his hand across her webbing, shredding it like tissue paper.

“I guess not,” Michelle mutters, widening her stance and bringing her fists up again, a boxer’s pose—just like her father had taught her all those years ago in his basement gym. Her father had been an elegant boxer, dancing around the ring on light feet, but Michelle is a brawler, making up for what she lacks in finesse with speed and sheer brute power.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” the man in black says gruffly as he stalks towards her.

“Buddy, I find that hard to believe,” Michelle replies dryly, stepping sideways to keep the table between herself and him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says, the burning green lenses of his goggles never leaving Michelle’s masked face as he follows her around the room, hypnotic in the darkness.

“Neither are you,” she retorts. “But since you _are_ here, allow me to ask—did you murder Gwen Stacy?”

The man lunges at her. Michelle thwips out another web, snagging the table and yanking it towards her. She brings it up like a shield, wincing again at the sound of his claw-tipped gloves carving effortlessly through the wood. 

She uses the table to shove him backwards, but he twists around it, darting towards her again. Michelle gives him a lot of credit for the fortitude he shows, but she’s done playing around now. She grabs his wrist as he throws another punch her way, squeezing until she feels something pop under her grip and the man grunts in pain.

“Listen, I’d love to keep chatting, but I’ve got chop suey waiting for me at home and I’m absolutely famished, so I gotta cut this short,” she tells him, twisting his arm until he’s forced to kneel. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in a recently murdered girl’s apartment, and we can go on our merry way.”

“I didn’t kill that girl,” he says, his voice low and harsh.

Michelle rolls her eyes behind her mask. “I gotta be real with you, pal—you’re not exactly making a strong case for your innocence. But I’m in a generous mood, so I’ll let you try again.”

The man in black says nothing, looking silently at her with those unnerving goggles.

Michelle rolls her eyes again, losing patience. She twists his arm higher. “Alright. You wanna do this the hard way? Be my guest, but you’re not gonna—”

Her Spidey-sense screams at her again, but something is already exploding in her face, her vision going blindingly white.

Michelle lets go of her assailant, bringing her hands up to her face reflexively as she stumbles backwards and collides with the stove, disoriented. Her ears are ringing as she rapidly blinks her eyes, trying to clear her vision, coughing as a sulphurous smoke stings her nose.

When the smoke finally clears and Michelle’s eyes have stopped watering, she finds herself alone in the dark apartment once more. She races over to the open window, peering out into the alleyway below and scanning the rooftops, but the black-clothed figure has vanished.

“Damn,” Michelle mutters, gritting her teeth as she presses a hand against her bleeding arm.


	2. THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

“You know, when you said you were chasing a tiger, I didn’t think you meant a _literal_ tiger,” Johnny says as he kneels beside Michelle in the bathroom and wraps a bandage around her slashed arm.

“Tigers have stripes. This guy was in all black,” Michelle replies, hissing in pain and shifting on her perch on the edge of the tub. “More of a panther, really.”

“Ooo—the _Black Cat._ Very sinister. Excellent villain name,” Johnny says with a grin. “Make sure you give me credit when you use it for your Bugle article.”

“The Black Cat...huh...yeah, not bad...that’s exactly the sort of theatrical high drama old J.J.J. likes,” Michelle replies with a snort, before her expression grows serious. “Johnny, darling, do me a favor...stay away from The White Widow till I close this case, or any other club for that matter. I don’t trust that Felicia Hardy.”

Johnny looks up at her, eyebrows raised. “Felicia? Oh, I wouldn’t worry about her. It’s her reputation for discretion that keeps her in all those diamonds and furs.”

“Still. Everyone has their price, and she smells off to me,” Michelle pleads. “She’s holding something back, I know it. If something happened to you because of one of my cases, I’d never forgive myself.”

Johnny’s eyes soften. He cups Michelle’s face in his hands, stretching up to kiss her forehead. “Darling girl...I do love you.”

He stands up, chucking her under the chin and flashing her a brilliant smile. “Alright, kid. I’ll mind my manners. I don’t mind being a house husband. My sister always says I’m good for nothing more than ornamentation, anyway.”

Michelle huffs out a little laugh, relieved. “Susie’s right, as always. I do adore your handsome face, though.”

Johnny grins at her again before going over to the sink to wash his hands. “Well, at least your case seems pretty cut and dry. A girl gets slashed, and a guy with claws shows up in her apartment...sounds like you have a cat to skin.” 

Michelle purses her lips, thinking of the rose she’d found in Gwen’s apartment. “Perhaps.”

She stands up, walking over to her closet and rummaging around for a dress.

“Where are you going now?” Johnny asks as he watches her throw the dress on over her head.

“The White Widow Club,” Michelle tells him as she tugs the hem of the dress down. She goes over to the vanity and pulls a draw open, selecting a lipstick.

“The White Widow Club? May we have a word about double standards, dear?” Johnny says with a sardonic smile as he leans against the doorframe.

“I’m going for business not pleasure, darling,” Michelle replies briskly, blotting her lipstick on a piece of tissue. “If I’m going to find who killed Gwen Stacy, I need to know how she lived first.”

“Well, good health and good luck, Shelly,” Johnny says cheerfully, giving her a goodbye peck on the cheek as she dashes out the door.

***

“Did you know Miss Stacy well?” Michelle asks, leaning forward in the plush chair she’s seated in, her notebook balanced on her knee and her pencil poised to take notes.

She’s backstage at The White Widow, in the shared dressing room where the dancers pour themselves into their sequined leotards before their shows in front of leering men. Michelle had approached several of the club’s girls, dancers and waitresses alike, before she’d finally found one willing to talk to a reporter.

The girl, a dancer like Gwen, had given her name only as “Liz” when Michelle had asked for it. She’s very beautiful and very young, like all of the girls employed here, with big doe eyes made even bigger by a long, thick set of false eyelashes.

The tears she sheds seem real enough, though.

“Yes. We were friends,” Liz says, delicating blotting at her welling eyes with the backs of her fingers, her nose pink. “Gwendy was friends with everyone. She is...she _was_ kind and gentle and smart. Real talented dancer, but a lot more than that, too. She had… _aspirations_ , you know?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you elaborated.”

Liz nods, sniffing. “She was hoping to save up some money, open a club of her own one day, maybe get married and start a family. She was on her way, too. Met a boy while taking a class at ESU. A business accounting class—she was always trying to better herself.”

“Did anyone ever seem jealous of her ambitions?”

Liz shakes her head. “No, we all loved her. She was trying to better herself, yeah, but she didn’t think she was better than any of the other girls. She was an angel. She used to negotiate for pay raises for us. She was a favorite of Miss Hardy, on account of her being so clever. Used to help Miss Hardy with her books.”

Michelle raises an eyebrow at that. She can imagine the sorts of accounting books Felicia Hardy keeps, and how a girl like Gwen could see something she shouldn’t and unwittingly get in over her head. 

Michelle files that information away for later, tapping her pencil against her notebook. “And what about the boyfriend? What can you tell me about him?”

Liz sniffs again, shaking her head. “I only met him once. He didn’t come to any shows—he lived out in Queens part of the time, worked odd hours—at a laboratory, I wanna say. He seemed real sweet the time I met him, though. Shy. Smart, like Gwen.”

“Did it seem like a happy relationship?” Michelle asks, eyes narrowed. “Did Gwen ever have any complaints about him? Did she ever seem scared, or like he was putting his hands on her?”

“No,” Liz says, shaking her head again more vehemently. “Gwen adored him, and he seemed to feel the same way for her. He used to have flowers delivered here every week for her—always red roses. We used to wonder how he could afford it. Gwen said he was a student. A few days before...before her murder, he had proposed. He’d given her a pearl ring, with a little pink diamond on either side.” 

A sad, wistful smile appears on Liz’s face as her big dark eyes grow glossy with tears again. “She was so excited. She’d been showing it off to the girls backstage. Miss Hardy had told her to take it off before she went out to dance—single girls get better tips. But Gwen had refused. Said she’d never take it off again, except to put on her wedding band the day of her marriage.”

The tears flow in full force, leaving inky kohl smudges under Liz’s eyes. Liz looks at Michelle, her expression almost pleading.

“I just don’t understand it,” she says, her voice breaking. “I don’t understand how anyone could hurt that sweet girl.”

Michelle takes a handkerchief out of her purse and hands it to Liz. She’s seen plenty of sweet girls get hurt for no other reason than daring to exist in a cruel and unjust world. And fair or not, girls like Gwen and Liz—girls like _herself_ —who don’t have money or class or the right skin color are even bigger targets of that cruelty.

“I’m very sorry,” Michelle says, and she truly is, but she’s here as a reporter tonight and she has a job to do. “Can you describe Gwen’s fiancé to me?”

Liz dabs at her pink nose with the handkerchief. “I only met him the once, but…” she shrugs. “Tall, lanky. Curly brown hair—real boyish. He looked like a student, really. A little shabby—like I said, we always wondered how he could afford all those flowers and that ring, because it didn’t seem like he came from money.” 

Liz sighs, wistful again. “We thought that was so romantic...Gwen had all kinds of suitors here at the club. She coulda been some rich businessman’s mistress, drowning in diamonds and silk, but all she wanted was that funny little boy with his roses. She loved him.”

“Anything else that would stand out? Scars, tattoos?”

Liz shakes her head. “No, not that I can recall. He was very ordinary. He had a real thick Queens accent, if that helps.”

Michelle nods, jotting all this down in her notebook. “Can you give me a name?”

“Yes,” Liz says, nodding as she blots at her eyes again. “His name is Peter Parker.”

***

Peter Parker is a ghost.

At least, that’s what Michelle is starting to think.

She leans her elbows against her desk, pinching the bridge of her nose. Two weeks have passed since she visited The White Widow, and her search for Gwen’s beau in the time since then has so far been a fruitless, frustrating endeavor. She suspects he left town, either because he is indeed the murderer and on the run, or because he fears whoever killed Gwen will do him in, too. That, or maybe he’s already feeding the fish on the bottom of the Hudson, which seems the likeliest scenario.

He’s certainly not at the tiny, depressing student accommodations he was residing in part-time at Empire State, nor was he returning to the small, rundown house in Queens that was also attached to his name. Michelle knows, because she’s staked out both places every night for the past week, splitting the residences between herself and Johnny, who’d eagerly offered to help now that he was temporarily grounded from the city’s nightlife.

A sharp knock raps on her door. 

Michelle raises her head, watching Ned Leeds poke his head into her office. He offers her a cheerful smile and holds up a folder.

“Got your dossier here, MJ,” he announces.

Michelle straightens up, eagerly beckoning him over. Ned is the very best researcher at the Bugle, doggedly hunting down tiny details. Michelle’s sent him sniffing after Parker in the hopes of catching a trail.

As always, Ned delivers.

“I finally found your missing man this morning,” he tells Michelle.

“Where?”

“At the New York City Mortuary,” Ned replies. “Slashed to ribbons and pulled out of the river, like that girl. The body was badly decomposed—I’ll bet he was killed and dumped with her. They were able to ID him with a library card he had in his back pocket. His aunt came by and confirmed it was him.”

“Christ, poor woman,” Michelle murmurs, shaking her head as her grimmest theory is confirmed.

“Yeah. That’s the curious thing, though—this wasn’t the first time she had a family member brutally offed. Her husband was murdered, too, some years ago. Peter Parker was the one who found the body and called it in. And get this--Parker and your girl were slashed up right? Like an animal had got to them? Well, I read the police report for the uncle’s murder and it was...equally gruesome, let’s say,” Ned says, shuddering. “The report said it looked like he’d been tied up and mauled by wild dogs.”

“Wild dogs and big cats…” Michelle muses darkly, quirking an eyebrow. She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “Now that’s very interesting...two murders in one family, plus the fiancee of one of the victims, similar M.O....that has to be more than just bad luck.”

“That was my thought, too, but I checked police records and the younger Mr. Parker is as clean as a whistle. Not even a ticket for jaywalking. His finances all look to be in order, as well, meager as they were,” Ned says. “His aunt did file a missing person report for him once, but the police determined he was a runaway and closed the case within a day.”

Michelle frowns. “How long was he missing?”

“The file didn’t say,” Ned replies with a shrug. “But there’s no paperwork to say the aunt pressed the matter. Sounds more like he missed curfew and the aunt overreacted than anything nefarious.”

Michelle nods, running her tongue over her teeth. “And what about the rest of his family?”

“His family is clean, too. Parents are long deceased—car accident. Parker was raised by his aunt and uncle. Aunt is a bit of a political rabble rouser, but she’s just an elderly widow who occasionally hosts community organizers in her home for tea and cookies, so I doubt she’s rocking any boats. Gwen Stacy had no run-ins with the law either, despite her...professional surroundings. A lovely, caring family, as far as I can see. It’s a real shame.”

“Appearances can be deceiving. My gut tells me there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the Parkers,” Michelle says, setting the file aside on her desk and giving Ned a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you for your help. That’s one mystery solved and one suspect off my list, at least.”

“Anytime,” Ned says, getting up to leave.

He’s barely stepped out the door to Michelle’s office when she hears Jameson howling her name from his own office at the end of the hall. Michelle sighs once more, dropping the file into a desk drawer before making her way down the hall to answer his summons.

“Jones! JONES! Blast it, where is she?” 

Jameson is haranguing his harried-looking secretary when Michelle pokes her head inside his office, rapping her knuckles on the door.

“Mr. Jameson? You wanted to see me?” she says mildly. 

Betty takes the opportunity to slip away passed Michelle and escape, but the office’s other occupant—a lanky young man with round-framed glasses and wavy blond hair sitting in the corner with a camera perched on his lap—stays put, silently watching the proceedings with a vaguely amused expression.

Jameson spins around, scowling at Michelle.

“Where the devil have you been, Jones?” he asks her around the cigar clenched in his teeth. “I’ve been calling for you for damn near ten minutes now. Every second counts in the news.”

“Sorry, sir,” Michelle says patiently, having learned very quickly that making excuses with Jameson is a pointless endeavor and likely to only work him into a greater froth, and Michelle knows which side of her bread is buttered. Jameson is a hardass with a loose grip on journalistic ethics, but unlike other papers he doesn’t give a damn about a person’s skin color or gender or religious creed, so long as they have a lick of talent, a willingness to roll in muck, and a strong patriotic antipathy for the Fuhrer and his sympathizers abroad and at home.

“What can I do for you?” she asks, stepping into the office and closing the door behind herself.

“I need you on a story-- _now,_ ” Jameson growls, gnawing at the end of his cigar. “Your Black Cat’s been at it again. Three bodies have turned up in the last twenty-four-hours. All three murdered.”

“What makes you suspect it’s the Black Cat’s work?”

“Because they were all slashed to pieces like that girl they dragged outta the Hudson, according to the police,” Jameson says impatiently. “If it looks like a cat and has claws like a cat, I’d damn well say it’s a cat.”

Michelle nods. “Have they been identified?”

Jameson grunts around his cigar. “Low-life thugs. No skin off society’s nose, but that’s not the point--this country is built on _law_ and _order_ , and now there’s another masked vigilante running around our neighborhoods playing judge, jury, and executioner. He’s nearly as bad a menace as the Spider-Woman. There will be blood and turmoil in the streets,” he says, slamming his fist on his desk to emphasize his words. “And nothing sells papers like turmoil. Get out there and tree that cat. I want the full story.”

He spins his chair towards the young man sitting silently in the corner, roaring at him. “Reilly!”

The young man leaps up from his chair, smoothing down his shabby jacket and straightening up.

“Yes, sir,” he pipes up.

Jameson jabs a finger at him. “Get me pictures of the Black Cat, or you’ll be back out looking for a job again.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man says again, looking like he’s about to salute the editor. Michelle has to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

Jameson turns back towards her, gesturing towards the young man. “Here’s your new photographer, Jones. Benjamin Reilly. Try to keep a grip on this one.”

The photographer takes a step towards Michelle, a smile lighting up his face.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Jones,” he greets enthusiastically, brushing floppy blond hair out of his eyes before holding out a hand for her to shake. “Please, call me Ben. I look forward to working together.”

Michelle ignores the hand, sizing the boy up before casting a petulant look at her editor. “Is this really the best you could do, J.J.?”

Jameson grumbles, waving a hand dismissively. “He’s cheap and he owns his own equipment. If you want me to hire Arthur Fellig for you, you better sell more of my papers first.”

Michelle sighs but drops her complaint, turning and walking out of the office. The new boy follows doggedly at her heels.

“I could show you my portfolio if you have doubts about my skill,” he offers earnestly as he trots down the hall behind her. 

“That won’t be necessary. This isn’t The New York Times. Anyone with two thumbs and a camera is qualified to work here. I don’t need talent--I need steady hands and a stiff spine,” Michelle replies briskly as she heads inside her own office and settles behind her desk. “Shut the door, please, and sit down.”

Ben does as she asks, closing the door and then perching on the chair opposite her, his expression a little anxious.

Michelle reaches into her desk drawer, pulling out the folder she keeps on Gwen Stacy’s case. She sets in on her desk and opens it to the grainy pictures and sketches she had taken the day Gwen’s mutilated body had been pulled from the river. She flips the folder around and pushes it across the desk towards Ben, shrewdly observing him as he looks down at the documents.

It seems to take him a second to realize what he’s looking at, and then the blood is draining out of his face so swiftly Michelle wonders if he will faint. He doesn’t, though--just sits frozen for a moment, his face bone-white and expressionless with shock, eyes locked on the pictures behind the thick lenses of his glasses. 

But after a brief time he seems to recover. He swallows hard twice and then lifts his head to look across the desk at Michelle, clearing his throat. 

“Who is she?” he asks with a professional curiosity, his voice and gaze steady.

“Gwendolyne Stacy,” Michelle replies, satisfied now that perhaps this new photographer does indeed have more mettle than her last. She pulls the folder back towards herself and closes it. “She was a dancer at The White Widow Club, up until someone murdered her.”

Ben raises an eyebrow. “You mean the Black Cat?”

“Possibly. That’s for us to find out,” Michelle says. “It’s likely to be dangerous work. That won’t be the last corpse you see as my photographer. Do you think you’re up to the task?”

Ben takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders and meeting her eyes. He nods. “I believe I am, Miss Jones.”

“Excellent. It’s a pain having to carry all that camera equipment myself while I’m trying to take notes. I’ll appreciate the extra set of hands,” Michelle says as she collects her notebook and pencil and her press badge. 

She stands, looking down at Ben. “Well, Mr. Reilly. Shall we get to work?”


	3. THE SPIDER

Michelle does her best detective work under the cover of darkness. 

Here, in the shadows cast by oily yellow street lamps, the Spider-Woman is free to go to the places Michelle Jones, Daily Bugle reporter, cannot. In the daylight, she is used to having doors closed in her face—because she’s a woman, because of her race, her profession, the infamy of her scandalous romance with Johnny Storm, who has the perverse audacity to bring his brown-skinned mistress into the public sphere. 

The Spider goes where she pleases. The moonlit rooftops of the city belong to her. 

And she’s not about to let a man-eating tiger intrude on her territory.

_Emilio Acuno. MacDonald Gargan. Morris Bench._

The names of the Black Cat’s latest victims play on a loop through her mind as she swings above the sleepless streets. It hadn’t taken her long to identify the mutilated bodies, given her many connections to the city’s criminal underbelly. She herself had sent Bench and Gargan to the can on more than one occasion.

What she doesn’t know is _why?_ Why these three men—lowlifes like Jameson said, yes, but small fry in the world of organized crime. And where do Gwen Stacy and the Parkers fit into all this? 

She’s missing a piece of the puzzle, but she has an idea of where she might be able to find it.

Michelle flips gracefully between two buildings, landing lightly in a crouch before springing up again, the silk of her web silvery against the velvet blue-black of the midnight sky. She soars above several more rooftops, weaving between sooty pillars of smoke belching out of chimneys, and then shimmies down the side of a rundown warehouse. She drops into a dark, narrow alleyway and heads towards a grimy, nondescript door in the side of the building.

A barrel-chested bruiser of a man leans just inside the door frame, the cherry of his cigarette glowing like a red eye in the darkness. He pretends not to see Michelle as she stalks silently to the door and opens it just wide-enough to slip inside.

The dim warren of rooms on the other side is rank with the cloying scent of incense that doesn’t quite hide the grimmer odors of excreta and mildew and burning opium, nor the morbid stink wafting over from the slaughterhouse next door. Michelle passes room after room of skeletal zombies lost in dreams of midnight oil, some accompanied by dead-eyed prostitutes with bruised arms wearing dirty satin robes.

Michelle would burn this whole hive of human misery to cinders if she could, and maybe she would, one day. For now, though, it still serves a purpose, a necessary evil.

She finds Charlie Weiderman at the stained, crowded bar in the back of the building, polishing glasses with a dirty rag, his back towards the entrance of the hall. He catches sight of her reflection in the grimy mirror hanging behind the bar, and he flinches so hard he drops the glass he’s holding. It shatters on the floor as he spins around to face her, his baggy eyes darting around the room as he hurriedly scuttles towards her.

“We had a deal,” he hisses at Michelle as he leads her into a storeroom, wringing his greasy hands anxiously. “You ain’t supposed to come here ‘cept during off hours. I get seen with you, and someone will pin me for a stoolie and wring my neck like a chicken’s.”

“Wouldn’t be anything less than what you deserve, Chuckie,” Michelle says, pressing her fist into her palm and cracking her knuckles. “I’m often tempted to do it myself.”

She takes a step closer to him. Charlie flinches again and scrambles backwards away from her, like the little wet-nosed rodent he is, until he collides with the wall. Michelle can smell the reek of fear on him and hear his heart pounding at a gallop. She smirks behind her mask.

“Just tell me what you want,” Charlie begs, sweat breaking out across his upper lip.

“I want what I always want from slimy little sewer rats like you—information,” Michelle tells him, taking another invasive step towards him. “The Black Cat. Who is he?”

Charlie cowers, shaking his head. “Don’t know. He used to just be called the burglar—did fancy jobs. Skilled jobs. Art theft, jewelry store heists, forgery, corporate espionage—that kinda thing. Real chameleon.”

“What about murder?”

Charlie rapidly shakes his head. “Don’t know nothing about that. Last I heard, he’d done a job for Anthony Stark. Axed a competitor. Planted evidence that Hammer Industries was illegally selling weapons to the krauts. Got Justin Hammer sent to the clink for fifteen years.”

“I’m not interested in these silly games between rich men. I want you to tell me the name of the man who murdered Emilio Acuno, MacDonald Gargan, and Morris Bench,” Michelle presses, injecting a promise of violence into her tone. “I know you hear things here, when the booze and drugs are flowing.”

“Christ, lady, I told you I don’t know,” Charlie sputters, pressing his back into the wall like he’s trying to pass through it. “I ain’t lying. Don’t nobody who comes to this shithole joint gonna know. The Cat ain’t your usual two-bit crook. He worked for society men. I’m talking about upstanding citizens—bankers and industrialists and the like.”

“You mean men with enough money to pay someone else to do their dirty work so they can stay above the law,” Michelle says flatly.

Charlie shrugs, his watery eyes gleaming with desperation within their heavy bags. “It is what it is, lady, I don’t make the rules.”

“What makes a man go from jewelry theft and forgery to multiple murders? Seems like a big leap.”

Charlie shrugs again, more sweat running down his temples as his eyes once more dart anxiously around the empty storeroom. “Men snap. Get desperate. Get angry. Get a taste for it. Who knows?”

“I think you do.” Michelle leans towards him, her masked face inches from his. 

“Emilio Acuno. MacDonald Gargan. Morris Bench,” she grits out between clenched teeth. “Tortured and murdered. _Why?_ ”

Charlie is pouring sweat, his head swiveling back and forth on his skinny neck. “Look, lady, I don’t want to be involved. You want my advice? Get outta town while you still can. He’s got eyes and ears everywhere. You’re in over your head and you don’t even—“

Michelle slams her fist into the wall right beside his head, cracking the concrete and sending a cloud of pulverized dust into the air.

“Alright, alright,” Charlie wheezes, his eyes bulging out of his head. “Acuno, Gargan, and Bench all worked for the Goblin.”

“The Goblin?” 

Michelle raises her eyebrows at that. She’s very familiar with the name, both as a reporter on the crime beat and as a vigilante beating criminals on the mean streets. The Goblin has the whole of New York City’s criminal organizations--as well as a good portion of the police force and local politicians--under his thumb, and he rules the city with an iron fist, more warlord than crime boss. Everyone knows the Goblin’s name, but the man behind the moniker remains unknown. Not even Michelle, who has spent years digging in the seediest, most shadowy parts of the city’s underbelly, has been able to discover his true identity. It’s a mystery of near mythic proportions, a very real boogeyman tale, and that anonymity makes the Goblin all the more dangerous.

Charlie nods. “Yeah. They were all low-level enforcers—brothel owners, rum runners, dope mules, that sorta thing.”

“And why would the Black Cat want to kill them?”

Charlie shrugs once more, swallowing hard. “I dunno. Maybe they disappointed their boss, and he sent the Cat to clean up their mess and teach his other subordinates the price of failure. I dunno.”

Michelle muses on this for a moment, but something about this theory doesn’t sit right with her.

“Maybe,” she considers, straightening up. _Or maybe the message is aimed at old Gobby._

Michelle thinks the Black Cat better have nine lives if that’s the case. She can’t imagine the Goblin would allow such insurrection to go unpunished for long.

“Thanks for your time, Chuckie, dear. It was a pleasure, as always,” she says as she turns on her heel and makes a swift departure, ready to return to her hunt armed with this new information.

***

It doesn’t take her long to find her tiger. Turns out the Black Cat’s on the prowl that night, too, and it seems he’s cornered his own prey.

Michelle’s swinging across Midtown sometime well after midnight when she feels the familiar tingle of her Spidey-sense get triggered. She twists around in midair and lands in a crouch against the sheer face of a high-rise, her eyes narrowed behind the lenses of her mask. On the rooftop of a building below, she spies two figures—one her man in black, the familiar green glow of his goggles bright against the darkness as he presses the muzzle of a revolver into his unfortunate companion’s forehead.

“Very naughty,” Michelle tsks to herself.

She drops down onto the rooftop behind the pair, pulling out her own pistol and taking aim at the Cat’s back.

“Put the gun down and your hands up,” she calls out.

“Hello, Spider,” the Cat replies without turning around, his gun still pointed unwaveringly at the other man’s terrified face. “You sure do love sticking your nose in my business. It’s becoming a bit of a nuisance, if I’m honest. I suggest you run along, or things could get unpleasant between us.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Michelle says. 

“Stay out of this,” the Cat warns her. “You don’t know what you’re getting involved in.”

“So tell me,” Michelle says calmly, taking a cautious step closer, her gun still raised. “Let me help you.”

The Cat lets out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Help me? Too late for that, Spider. I’m a dead man walking, already damned to hell. I’m just doing the city a favor by taking this scum with me.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Michelle says again, taking another step closer. 

“You could, if you were brave enough. Filth like this doesn’t deserve mercy.”

“Maybe not,” Michelle agrees, inching closer. “But everyone deserves justice. That includes a fair trial.”

“A fair trial?” The Cat laughs again. “Where do you get one of those in this city? There is no justice here, not when the judges line their pockets with bribes and the juries get death threats in their mailboxes. No...we have to make our own justice. Isn’t that why you’re out here, night after god-forsaken night?”

Michelle comes to a halt, her pistol locked between his shoulder blades. “I’m here to stop you from hurting anyone. Put the gun down. I’m not gonna let you kill again.”

“Again? I told you I didn’t kill that girl, or anyone else, for that matter. I made a promise a long time ago that I wouldn’t hurt people like that. I don’t like to break my promises,” the Cat tells Michelle, ignoring his hostage’s violent trembling. He presses the muzzle of his revolver harder into the man’s sweaty forehead, his voice turning icy and brittle. “But maybe that’ll change tonight.”

The man being held at the end of the Cat’s gun darts a frightened glance her way. “Help me, please, this guy’s crazy!”

“Put. The. Gun. Down. Now!” Michelle demands, her grip tightening on her pistol. “I’m not gonna ask you again.”

The Cat ignores her, shoving the gun deeper into the man’s flesh, forcing his head back while the man wheezes in panic. The hat the man is wearing slides off and tumbles over the edge of the roof, spinning as it’s caught on a gust of wind.

“You ever seen what the inside of a man’s head looks like? I have. Looks like strawberry ice cream,” the Cat murmurs, green goggles burning hellishly in the dark. His finger twitches on the trigger.

Michelle’s free hand shoots out, firing a web. The silk snags the gun and she yanks it out of his hand. 

The Cat spins around at the same time, grabbing his hostage by the throat with a clawed hand. He pulls the man in front of himself like a shield, claws digging into the soft, fragile skin of the man’s neck.

“I warned you,” the Cat tells Michelle. “When the bad things start happening...when the people you love get hurt...remember that I told you to stay out of it. He’s watching you, now. Not even a spider can hide from him. He has a thousand eyes.”

“Let him go,” Michelle demands through clenched teeth.

The corner of the Cat’s mouth twitches up into a playful smirk under his half-mask.

“As you wish,” he says, flinging the man off the roof. 

Michelle leaps after the shrieking man as he plummets towards the street below. She fires a web at him, the silk clinging securely to the front of his shirt. She twists around and thwips out another web, snagging the side of a building and arresting their fall.

She crawls up the side of the building, hauling her burden up behind her. The Cat is gone when she reaches the rooftop, unsurprisingly. She’s starting to get a little annoyed with his talent for slipping through her fingers.

“The Eel is a more accurate name than the Black Cat,” she mutters bitterly to herself as she drags the man the rest of the way up. 

He tumbles over the ledge onto the rooftop, rolling over and over before coming to a stop lying faceup, his chest heaving.

Michelle stalks over to him and plants a foot on his chest.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Why should I tell you?” the man shoots back.

Michelle reaches down and grabs a fistful of his shirt, pulling him up and then forcing him to walk backwards towards the edge of the roof once more. She makes him lean out over empty air while he whimpers out pleas. 

“I may have just saved your bacon, but believe me when I say I have no compunctions about throwing you back off this roof, pal,” Michelle tells him. “Your information is more valuable to me than your life. And keep your story straight—I’ll be able to tell if you lie.”

“Davis,” the man immediately replies, the whites of his eyes showing as he clings to her wrist. “The name’s Aaron Davis.”

“Alright, Mr. Davis. Tell me this, now...do you work for the Goblin?”

The man’s eyes dart to her masked face, his own face going ashy. He swallows hard. “Lady, I don’t—”

Michelle starts to loosen her grip on his shirt.

“Jesus, help me! Yes, I’ve done work for him!” the man splutters, his hands tightening on her arm.

Michelle pulls him up a little. “Who is he?”

The man shakes his head, panic shining in his eyes. “I swear I don’t know. Don’t nobody know. _Please._ ”

“Did he send the Black Cat after you?”

The man shakes his head again. “I don’t know. I don’t—he just grabbed me. Said it was...a wedding gift—the guy’s _bats_. He belongs in a madhouse. I don’t know anything—please, I didn’t have a choice. I’m just trying to feed my family. The Depression’s ruined us.”

Michelle drags him away from the ledge and then releases him.

“Go home to your family,” she tells him. “Stay out of trouble and lie low. Get out of the city if you can.”

“Thank you, thank you,” the man gasps out, backing hurriedly towards the roof access door.

Michelle turns back to look out over the city, brooding, running her tongue across her teeth and watching the cars rumble through toxic clouds of exhaust along the oily streets, like bad blood through arteries. This city’s been poisoned, and sometimes it feels like she’s the only one trying to find a cure. 

Maybe the Cat’s right, she thinks. Maybe it’d be better to burn it all and take as many miserable scumbags down with it as she can—scum like the Goblin, and all the corrupt, greedy officials who turn a blind eye to the suffering of their fellow man while they line their pockets with their ill-got gains.

She slips a finger into one of the pouches on her belt and tugs out the scrap of folded paper she keeps there. She opens it, reading the scrawled writing inside for what must be the hundredth time.

_To Gwendy, all my love forever and always, P._

Michelle folds it again and tucks it back into her belt. Then she steps off the edge of the building and sails on a line of silk through the muggy night air. 

The moonlight city and all its lost souls belong to her. She’s not going to give up on them yet.


	4. THE TANGLED WEB

Michelle returns to the apartment she shares with Johnny in the small grey hours of the morning. She’d spent the rest of the night stopping muggers and would-be car thieves, always keeping one eye peeled for any signs of the Black Cat. But her tiger had remained elusive after their run-in, and eventually she’d had to turn in, her limbs weighed down with fatigue.

She’s barely bathed and gotten into bed when the telephone down the hallway starts ringing. She lies there staring up at the ceiling, listening to Johnny thump out of his bedroom to answer the call.

A few moments later, there’s a rap at her door and then Johnny’s poking his head inside, an apologetic smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry to disturb you, Shelly, but that was Betty Brant on the horn,” he says. “There’s been another murder over at a speakeasy in the meatpacking district, on West Thirteenth and Washington.”

Michelle sits up and throws off the blankets, alarmed. She’d been in that exact location not a few hours earlier, interrogating Charlie Weiderman in his stinking opium den. “Did they ID the body?”

Johnny shakes his head. “Miss Brant didn’t say. Come on--I’ll drive you.”

For once, Michelle is grateful for the fact that Johnny has a lead foot as they rocket across town in his car, the engine of the Grand Prix roaring in her ears. The rumble doesn’t quite drown out the sound of her own drumming heartbeat, her sense of dread climbing even higher as they pull up alongside the mouth of the alley where the opium den is located and she sees all the cops milling about outside.

She spots Ben Reilly as she leaps from the car, the photographer leaning against the building, hatless, his wheat-blond hair shining in the weak dawn sunlight filtering through the curtain of smog hanging above the buildings. He’s deep in conversation with a tall man Michelle is also familiar with—Robbie Robertson, a rival reporter from one of the few Black-owned papers in the city, who’s managed to make quite a name for himself among readers of all demographics for his fearless, sharp-toothed exposes of political corruption—a name, and many enemies.

Michelle isn’t surprised to find him here but his presence irks her just a little, even though their professional rivalry is mostly friendly. She has a reputation for being territorial and for a willingness to throw elbows if necessary, but she feels particularly protective of this story and anything she suspects is related to her girl Gwen Stacy and the Black Cat. 

Robbie catches sight of her approaching first, a bright smile lighting up his face as Michelle joins their tiny huddle. “Well, well, well...Miss Jones, still on the beat, but a beat too late. I’ve already scooped your story. Early bird catches the worm.”

“He’s lying,” Ben interjects with a smile of his own. “The cops haven’t let us in yet. And anyway, I was here first. I should get to stake our claim.”

Michelle isn’t in the mood for playful banter with her colleagues. There’s an uncomfortable itch between her shoulder blades and she finds herself scanning the rooftops above almost unconsciously.

“What are we waiting for? Hurry up, Reilly,” she says briskly, pushing past them and marching up to the door.

It’s being guarded by a paunchy, red-faced cop with greasy ginger hair poking out from under his cap. He glowers at Michelle as she comes towards him with Ben and Robbie close at her heels. He takes a step forward and plants his feet on the oily asphalt, his hands tucked into his belt.

“You can’t go in,” he announces.

Michelle holds up her badge. “I’m press.”

The cop doesn’t budge.

“Don’t matter. This ain’t no place for a lady,” he grunts. His little watery eyes flick over to Robbie, his lip twitching with disdain. “Ain’t no place for you, either. Scram.”

“Excuse me, officer—she’s with me,” Ben pipes up, squeezing between Michelle and Robbie, an ingratiating smile plastered on his face. “They’re both with me. I promise we won’t be any trouble if you could just let us in for a minute.”

He hands his press badge to the cop, who takes it and briefly scowls down at it before handing it back. The cop steps to the side, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the door. “Make it quick. Don’t touch anything.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ben says with another smile, leading Michelle and Robbie inside.

With the door shut behind them, Robbie lets out a low whistle.

“Damn, maybe I need to hire a white boy to sweet talk the cops for me,” he says, teeth shining in the dimness as he grins.

“I certainly won’t complain about taking advantage of his social privileges,” Michelle says dryly. “We have to use every weapon in our arsenal, right?”

Ben shoots a smile back at them. “It wasn’t just the talk or the racial sympathies. I slipped him ten bucks under my badge.”

Robbie snorts. “Only a white boy could pay a cop to go temporarily colorblind.”

“Well, I’m just glad it worked—that was a week’s worth of my rent,” Ben says, holding up a rope the police have tied across a doorway to cordon it off. 

“After you, Miss Jones,” he says, smiling at Michelle.

Michelle returns his smile, feeling appreciative of the fact that he’s so ready and willing to personally sacrifice so much for the sake of getting their story. 

Because ultimately it’s more than just a story. Gwen Stacy is still waiting for justice, and Michelle fully intends to give it to her and put an end to these murders.

The smile slips from her face as she ducks under the rope and takes a few steps into the windowless room. She’s hit in the face with a smell, different from the usual reek of opium and the stench of nearby abattoirs—a smell she is intimately familiar with, rich and coppery and thick in the air. The same scent that she’s been confronted with countless times over the years both as a reporter covering murders and as the Spider-Woman, arriving to a scene of violence a few minutes too late. It’s the scent she remembers most vividly the day her father had died, when she’d come home from college to find him lying stone-cold and stiff on the concrete floor of his boxing gym, a sticky black pool of congealed blood encircling his head like a grisly halo.

A body sits upright in a chair across the room from her, its wrists tied to the chair’s arms. The cause of death is immediately apparent—the victim’s head has been pulverized, nothing left but shards of bone and red jelly and gleaming viscera. More gore is sprayed across the walls and ceiling above and behind the corpse.

“Good Lord,” Robbie murmurs, coming up behind Michelle and standing at her shoulder. He covers his mouth and nose with a handkerchief and crosses himself with his free hand, eyes locked on the unseeable sight before them. “Any idea who this poor soul is?”

“Charles Weiderman,” Michelle replies, her face expressionless.

“So someone finally got to the Molten Man,” Robbie says grimly, tucking his handkerchief into a pocket and producing a notebook and pencil. He starts scribbling.

“Mr. Midnight Oil...head smashed like an egg. Hell of a way to be executed. Whoever did _this_ to the poor bastard meant it to be a warning, I reckon,” he continues shrewdly. “Question is: who’s it for?”

_Me,_ Michelle thinks.

_The Goblin has a thousand eyes._

Robbie looks at her, raising his eyebrows. “So...what do we think? Is this the work of that Black Cat again?”

“No,” Michelle replies shortly. She turns around to face Ben, who is standing silently by the doorway, his face pale as he clutches his camera to his chest.

“Photos, Mr. Reilly,” she orders briskly. “Get every angle, and closeups. Take pictures of the room, as well.”

Ben blinks rapidly, tearing his eyes away from the corpse to look at her. He swallows and clears his throat, reaching up to push his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sorry, Miss Jones, but I don’t think even Mr. Jameson will print these photos,” he says weakly.

“They aren’t for Jameson. Take the pictures,” Michelle says as she stalks out of the room and back down the long corridor to the building’s exit.

Johnny’s waiting for her at his car parked in the street off the alleyway. The hood of the Grand Prix is propped open, and he stands in front of it in his shirtsleeves, peering down at the engine with his hands on his hips, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip.

Michelle feels a sudden sharp regret for allowing him to bring her here, a spike of icy dread that has her scanning the windows and rooftops of the surrounding buildings again.

Johnny looks up as she walks towards him, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “Well? Another unfortunate victim of your tiger?”

Michelle shakes her head. “No. A much bigger predator got to this one.”

Johnny’s eyebrows climb higher. “What’s bigger than a tiger?”

“A goblin,” Michelle says flatly, leaning against the car. “I need a cigarette.”

Johnny hands her the one dangling from his lip, pulling out a lighter and lighting it for her, a frown line forming between his brows. “Are you alright, dear?”

Michelle takes a long drag off the cigarette, nodding. “I’m fine. This is a more complicated web than I expected it to be when I agreed to take Miss Hardy’s case, J. That’s all.”

“Good thing you’re very familiar with navigating webs,” Johnny says, winking. 

Michelle manages a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She scans the rooftops again, still feeling uncomfortably exposed here even though her Spidey-sense is reassuringly quiet.

She straightens up, flicking the cigarette into the gutter. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. It stinks.”

“I’d love to whisk you away, Shelly, but the damn car’s given up the ghost,” Johnny says regretfully, thumping a fist down on top of the engine.

Michelle smirks at him, her tone wry. “Probably because you drive it like a demon-possessed racer, dear.”

“How else are you supposed to drive a Grand Prix?” Johnny asks, scowling down at the engine. “Damn. I’m flummoxed. I’ll have to run in somewhere and find a phone to ring my mechanic.”

“I could take a look at it, if you don’t mind,” a voice calls to them.

Michelle and Johnny turn towards it. Ben’s reappeared, still looking a little pale, but he manages a friendly smile as he approaches the car. 

“I got your photos, Miss Jones,” he adds, holding up his camera. “I’ll get them developed for you today.”

Michelle nods. “Thank you, Reilly. I know that wasn’t easy, and I appreciate your commitment.”

Johnny straightens up, appraising the young man. “Who’s the new blood?”

“The name’s Reilly,” Ben says, smiling again as he holds out a hand for Johnny to shake. “Ben Reilly. I’m a new photographer with the Daily Bugle.”

Johnny gives Ben a roguish grin in return as he pumps his hand. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Johnny Storm. Broadway composer, according to my curriculum vitae. Rake-about-town, if you check the tabloids. Truth is, I’m tied to this one’s apron strings,” he says, jabbing a thumb at Michelle while she rolls her eyes with wry amusement. “Well, Benji—can I hope to call you a fellow automotive enthusiast?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but no, I can’t claim to be one. Don’t know a thing about cars, except for their engines,” Ben says a little sheepishly. “I can’t even drive. But my uncle was a mechanic, and I used to spend my summers in his shop. I could at least take a look?”

“If it means there’s a chance I don’t get robbed blind by my regular mechanic, then by all means, have at it,” Johnny says cheerfully, clapping Ben on the back. 

He goes to stand beside Michelle on the curb while Ben leans over the engine, pulling another cigarette out and putting it unlit to his lips. Johnny has in fact never smoked a cigarette in his life—it would ruin his singing voice, he’d once explained to Michelle when she’d questioned this quirk years ago—but he liked the aesthetics of a man with a cigarette.

He likes the aesthetics of a man bent over a car engine, too, watching Ben with rapt, hungry eyes.

“You’re leering, darling,” Michelle murmurs to him. “Put your tongue back behind your teeth before you scare the poor boy. Jameson will have my hide if I lose another photographer so soon after the last one split.”

Johnny scoffs quietly. “I’m not leering. And if I was, it would be all your fault, anyway. You’ve been keeping me cooped up in the apartment forever.”

“Better cooped up in the apartment than dead in the gutter, dear,” Michelle says mildly.

“I’m starting to question if that’s true,” Johnny says glumly. “My creative fires have all gone out. I’m supposed to deliver a complete composition at the end of the month, but the passion...it’s left me. I need to gin up the muse, kid, or I’m toast.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Michelle sighs, rolling her eyes again.

Ben pokes his head around the hood. “Could you turn the ignition, Mr. Storm?”

“It’s Johnny. If you call me Mr. Storm we won’t be friends,” Johnny says as he climbs into the car. He turns the ignition, and the engine roars to life.

“Hot dog!” Johnny crows, delighted. “You’ve done it, Benji.”

“Well done,” Michelle praises, smiling at Ben as he closes the hood. “It would have been a terrible tragedy to lose the Grand Prix. Johnny loves it more than he loves me.”

“Only a tiny bit more, dear,” Johnny says cheekily, hopping out of the car and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Glad I could help,” Ben says with a smile, wiping his hands clean on a handkerchief. “This is a miserable spot to be stuck waiting for a mechanic.”

“Truer words,” Johnny agrees. He gestures to the car. “You want to take it for a little spin? I could give you a driving lesson in return for your fix.”

“Oh, no, thank you,” Ben says, holding up his hands and shaking his head. “The gears and the pedals...I can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time.”

“Well, how about a stiff drink back at my place?” Johnny offers. “I just got my hands on some top shelf vodka—none of that rot-gut stuff that’ll make you go blind. I can make you a Bloody Mary that will take the curl right out of your hair. Unless you’re a teetotaler who believes in the righteous cause of Prohibition?”

“Not at all. I could use a stiff drink after what I saw in there,” Ben says with a shudder.

Johnny opens the car door for him, grinning. “Hop in, kid. We’ll set you up. Darling?”

He looks towards Michelle, but she shakes her head.

“Go on without me. I’ve got one more errand to run,” she says.

“Well, good luck with it, peach,” Johnny says, tipping his hat to her as he climbs into the driver seat. He pulls away from the curb, leaning out the window to blow her a kiss.

Michelle blows one back, waving and smiling as the pair careen off in the Grand Prix in a cloud of black exhaust.

Robbie wanders up from the alleyway, puffing on a cigarette.

“Mortuary workers are here to collect the body,” he tells her. He shakes his head. “This city sure can be ugly.”

Michelle nods, running her tongue over her teeth. “Your father...he’s active in Socialist Party politics and community organizing.”

“If by ‘Socialist Party politics’ you mean looking out for poor workers who have their bosses’ boots on their necks, then yes, he’s involved,” Robbie replies, blowing out a thin stream of smoke. “He’s a reverend—he sees it as his duty to protect his flock. Always says Jesus was the first socialist.”

“Does he know May Parker by any chance?”

“May Parker...May Parker…” Robbie muses thoughtfully, rubbing a finger over his thin mustache. “Yeah, might could...the name’s familiar. Yeah...little old white lady, lives somewhere out in Queens. Forest Hills, maybe? I know my old man’s gone to meetings out that way. She's a real firebrand, by reputation.”

“So I’ve heard. If she’s not at home...where might I find her?”

Robbie takes a deep breath, thinking. “I believe she volunteers pretty regularly over at a soup kitchen in the Bowery. I’d try that first.”

Michelle nods. “Thank you, Robbie.”

She turns on her heel and starts down the street.

“Hey!” Robbie calls after her. “What’s all this about?”

“Justice,” Michelle calls back, striding forward at a brisk, determined pace.

***

The ragged line of downtrodden souls queued up outside the Bowery Welfare Center is a pitiable but familiar sight to Michelle, a sobering reminder of the criminal inequities of the city and America at large that have been laid bare by the Depression.

Michelle weaves her way past unemployed dock workers and grizzled, combat-scarred veterans of the Great War towards the building’s entrance. She slips inside, scanning the long rows of tables set up with great steaming stock pots of soup and rough loaves of days-old bread.

Rockefeller, Stark, Carnegie, Osborn—any one of the city’s fat cats could feed this sorry rabble of humanity for weeks on end without missing a single penny, and yet it’s a row of plain-dressed war widows and grey-haired dowagers from the local churches and synagogues who ladle the thin broth into bowls for the endless stream of gaunt men and women and skinny, dirty-faced children that have gathered here today.

Michelle slips in between the line, approaching one of the volunteers ladling soup. 

“Excuse me, miss—is May Parker here today?” she asks her.

The woman nods, gesturing towards the end of the row of tables. “Yes, that lady down there, in the blue apron.”

May Parker is a petite, grey-haired woman with the appearance of someone’s sweet old granny, but there is a firm set to her mouth and a sharpness to her gaze that suggests her reputation for fiery criticism of the city’s corrupt bigwigs and their unethical treatment of workers is well-earned.

“Mrs. Parker?” Michelle says, stopping in front of her.

“Yes?” May replies without looking up or pausing her ladling.

“My name is Michelle Jones. I’m a reporter with the Daily Bugle. I was hoping we might speak for a few minutes.”

“Requests for interviews need to be sent to the offices of F.E.A.S.T.,” May replies briskly, ladling an extra serving of broth into the bowl of a waiting waif in ragged braids and a filthy dress.

“I’m not here to talk about the charity, Mrs. Parker,” Michelle says. “I’m here because I’m investigating the murder of your nephew and his fiancée.”

May stops ladling soup, her sharp eyes flicking up to Michelle’s face. Her mouth tightens.

“I have no wish to speak to a tabloid reporter about my nephew’s passing,” she bites out in a hard voice.

“I understand that, Mrs. Parker. I’m very sorry for your loss,” Michelle replies patiently. “But I have reason to believe that a series of murders recently committed in the city are linked to his death. I believe your husband’s murder is related, as well, and I also believe that these murders will continue if something isn’t done to stop them. You may be able to provide me with information that could help capture this killer before anyone else gets hurt.”

May’s nostrils flare. She sets the ladle down, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Come with me,” she tells Michelle, before striding towards the rear of the building.

Michelle follows. May leads her into a small, empty kitchen and gestures for her to sit down at a table pushed against one of the walls.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” May generously offers, though the corners of her mouth are drawn down in a tense frown.

“That would be nice, thank you,” Michelle says, taking her notebook and pencil out of her handbag and setting them on the table.

May sets the kettle to boil on the stove, and then comes to sit at the table with Michelle.

“So...you’re the Bugle’s lady reporter,” she says, folding her hands on the table and looking Michelle over shrewdly. “That paper still belongs in the garbage, if you ask me, but I’ll give that windbag Jameson credit for recognizing that men don’t have a monopoly on talent and ability. Good to know he has an ounce of progressivism in him.”

Michelle smiles, letting out a small huff of laughter. 

“He’d denounce you by name on the front page of the Bugle if he heard you’d dared to slander him like that. Man or woman, Black or white...Jameson doesn’t care a whit about social progress--he’d hire the Devil himself if he thought he could move more papers. He’s driven by capital, like any true American patriot,” she replies dryly.

The corner of May’s mouth twitches upward, her eyes softening just a touch. She takes a breath, sitting up straighter and rearranging her shawl on her shoulders.

“You said you wished to speak to me about my nephew’s murder,” she says quietly.

“I’d like to talk to you about your nephew’s life, first, if that would be alright,” Michelle replies gently. “Can you tell me about Peter?”

May swallows, taking another deep breath, but when she starts talking her voice is strong and steady. 

“Peter came to live with us—myself and my husband, Ben—when he was just a little boy. His parents had been killed in a car crash. Ben and I...we never had children of our own...we saw Peter coming to us as a blessing borne from tragedy,” she says, folding and unfolding her hands on the table. “My husband had just come back from the war--he was a pilot--and it felt like the whole world was just like us, grieving and celebrating at the same time. We didn’t have much, but we were a family, and we were happy.”

The kettle starts to whistle, and May pauses to get up to tend to it. 

“I heard that he was a student,” Michelle says. “At Empire State--top of his class.”

“Yes. Peter is--he was brilliant. All his teachers told us so from the time he was little,” May replies, pouring water from the kettle into a teapot. “They wanted us to send him to a special school, but even with scholarships we could never afford it.”

May brings the tea service back to the table, sitting down again, a small, wistful smile on her face. “Peter did the best he could with the little he had--he was so _curious._ Always reading, reading, reading. And building things, too. He made all sorts of gadgets from rubbish he found in the trash walking to and from school. He was constantly pestering Ben to teach him things--how to read a compass, how to use a radio, how to drive, how to _fly._ He wanted to grab the whole world with his hands.”

“He sounds like he was a remarkable young man, Mrs. Parker,” Michelle says kindly. She pauses, knowing that she needs to tread cautiously here. “I saw that you once filed a missing person report for him with the police shortly after your husband died…”

May’s eyes flick to Michelle’s face, her demeanor immediately turning wooden again. “Yes. We had some...difficult years after my husband’s death. If you read the police reports, then you know Peter was the one who found my husband after the violence was done to him. That sort of thing...it can affect a person, obviously. Peter was upset, he was angry, and he ran away from home. He returned on his own, eventually.”

“How long was he gone?” 

May’s jaw tightens. She looks away from Michelle, her eyes downcast on her hands folded atop the table, clenched so tight her knuckles are white.

“You’ll think the worst of me, but I promise we were happy, before…” she says forcefully. “Lots of boys leave home, to find work, or…”

“Mrs. Parker, I’m just a reporter,” Michelle gently interjects. “It’s my job to report the facts, not to judge you or make assumptions. How long was he gone?”

May lifts her head, her eyes shining. “Five years. He was gone five years. But he stayed in contact. He’d write letters, send gifts…”

Michelle nods, jotting all this down in her notebook.

“Do you know what he was doing during that time?” she carefully presses.

May shakes her head, looking suddenly agitated, her eyes darting towards the door. “He never talked about it. He just said that he worked. It must have been a good job—he paid off the rest of my mortgage two years after he left. A woman and her husband took him in. He said they always treated him well, like family…”

“Do you know their names?”

May shakes her head again, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Peter never said, just that they were kind to him. He came back home to me after the man died of a drug overdose in the house they shared. It had shaken Peter very badly, I think. He was different when he came home.”

“How so?”

“Bitter. Lost. Like something had been stolen from him—something _had_ been stolen from him. Fatalistic. Like...his eyes had been opened to all the unfair cruelties of the world and he couldn’t see a way to ever surmount them. I think…I think he learned something about Ben’s murder while he was away...it had disturbed him.”

“Did he say what?”

“I’m sorry, no. I’m just speculating.” May shakes her head, a furrow forming between her brows and her eyes distant, like she’s lost in bad memories. She takes a sip of her tea, seeming to compose herself. “I convinced him to go back to school. I hoped that if he had a purpose, a goal to work towards, that the bright, happy boy he was might come back. And he did.”

“He met Gwen Stacy,” Michelle says.

May smiles, her eyes glossy with tears again as she nods. “Yes. Darling girl. I still remember the day they met—Peter came home grinning ear-to-ear, love drunk. He told me he was sure he’d met the girl he was going to marry. It was that quick. The time he and Gwen spent together...I think it was the happiest I’d ever seen him. She was so full of hope for the future, and Peter dared to share that optimism with her.”

May’s face falls then, her jaw working as the tears she had held back begin to roll down her lined cheeks. 

Michelle reaches across the table and takes her hand, gently squeezing it. “I’m sorry.”

May squeezes her hand back. “Thank you, dear. To lose your whole family...it’s a particular sort of grief to know you’re the last survivor.”

Michelle nods. She knows that grief all too well. 

“Mrs. Parker...did the Goblin murder your husband?” she asks quietly.

May goes very still. Then she withdraws her hand, getting to her feet.

“My family was murdered by greed and unrestrained corruption,” she replies, gathering the teacups and carrying them to the sink.

Michelle stands, as well. “Mrs. Parker—“

“I’ve told you all I know,” May says sharply. “Too much for a tabloid reporter. I won’t let you make a spectacle of my family.”

She wipes her hands on a dish towel and starts for the door. “I have to get back to the soup line now. Please don’t contact me again.”

Michelle jumps after her, grasping her elbow.

“Mrs. Parker, please...this isn’t about creating a lurid story to sell papers. This is about _justice,_ ” Michelle tells her urgently. “My father always told me that if those in power can't be trusted, it's the responsibility of the people to remove them. I believe in the power of the press, Mrs. Parker. That’s why I became a journalist—to expose corruption, to give a voice to the silenced victims. That’s my motivation for all I do. Help me get justice for Gwen Stacy and your husband. Help me get justice for _Peter._ ”

May reluctantly stops. She looks at Michelle, meeting her gaze.

“You remind me of him,” she murmurs. “Of Peter. He had the same fire, the same stubbornness. And he was reckless like you, too. You have to understand how dangerous this is. You start asking questions, stirring the pot...bad things happen. You go looking for the monster under the bed, and you just might find him.”

“I understand,” Michelle says firmly, her gaze unwavering.

May nods, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Talk to Harry Osborn. My husband was his driver, for a time. They were close—as close as an employer and his worker could be, anyway. Harry would confide in him. I think that poor boy was desperate for an attentive father figure, and Ben was kind to everyone. That kindness may have killed him, in the end.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Parker,” Michelle says, releasing her arm.

“Good luck, Miss Jones,” May says solemnly. “You’ll need it.”


	5. KISS ME DEADLY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You saved me,” he murmurs, the ghost of his breath feathering Michelle’s lips through her mask.
> 
> “I caught you,” Michelle replies gruffly, tightening her grip on him. She has no intention of letting him get away again this time, finished with his tricks.
> 
> “My hero,” the Cat purrs, his voice low and husky.

A thin peachy-pink ribbon of sunlight is just beginning to burn through the grey curtain of smog hovering above the city skyline when Michelle finally returns home after a long night of patrolling, still mulling over her conversation with May Parker.

This is the second time Harry Osborn’s name has popped up over the course of her investigation. Michelle is familiar with the younger Osborn only through his relation to his famous father, Norman Osborn, the newly appointed and exorbitantly wealthy mayor of New York City, and Harry’s frequent, lurid appearances in the dirtiest tabloid rags, where gossip stories covering his fleeting, explosive relationships with strings of Hollywood ingenues compete with darker rumors of his drug abuse and connections to mobsters.

And now, it seems, his connection to the Parkers and Gwen Stacy.

_A tangled web, indeed,_ Michelle muses as she crawls through the window into the living room of her and Johnny’s apartment. 

She tugs off her mask, combing out the tight braids in her hair with her fingers. She pads across the room to the small study off the foyer, removing her holster and pistol and hanging them on a hook on the back of the door before retreating to the bathroom to wash away the night’s grime, still lost in her thoughts and speculations.

Michelle can hear someone bumping around in the kitchen opening and closing cabinets as she gets out of the bath and towels herself dry. She slips into a robe and heads in that direction, suddenly desperate for a cup or three of strong black coffee.

She finds Ben Reilly there, his back to her as he peers into the cabinet above the sink, wearing the same clothes she’d seen him dressed in early yesterday morning, his shirt untucked and wrinkled and his hair standing up in tufts.

“Good morning, Mr. Reilly,” Michelle greets pleasantly as she ties the sash of her robe around her waist and wanders into the kitchen.

Ben startles badly, spinning around and banging his elbow hard into the edge of the counter. He winces, clutching the injured limb to his chest. He stares wide-eyed at Michelle, blinking rapidly behind the lenses of his glasses. A pretty pink flush spreads across his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears.

“Ouch! Oh, Christ—Miss Jones,” he splutters, reaching up to frantically smooth down his tousled hair and then tuck in his rumpled shirt. “You startled me. I was just--” he gestures helplessly at the cabinets. “I was just trying to get a glass of water. Did I wake you? Johnny—I mean, Mr. Storm—said you’d likely be out all night, and...so I just...”

He trails off, looking very much like a boy who’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Michelle has to struggle to contain her amusement.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. And no, you didn’t wake me. I only arrived home a short time ago,” Michelle says, a smile tugging up the corners of her mouth as she walks over beside him. She opens the cabinet by the pantry, taking out a glass and handing it to him. “Water glasses are beside the pantry. They belong in the cabinet next to the sink, but Johnny refuses to move them. He has strange superstitions. But now you know for next time.”

Ben takes it from her, still furiously blushing. He clears his throat, avoiding her eyes. “Thank you.”

Michelle’s smile curls wider as she reaches for the percolator. “Would you care for some coffee? I’m guessing you had a late night last night. Johnny enjoys company, and once he starts talking it’s nearly impossible to get him to stop.”

Ben shakes his head, the flush crawling across the back of his neck as he fills the glass from the sink’s faucet. “No, thank you, water’s alright.”

He takes a gulp of the water and then clears his throat again, forcing himself to look Michelle in the face. He offers her a wan smile. “Well. I should really be off. I have some photographs to develop for Mr. Jameson. I’ll see you in the office later, Miss Jones.”

“Very well,” Michelle says, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms over her chest as she smirks at him. She looks him up and down, narrowing her eyes. “A question before you go—do you own a suit, Mr. Reilly?”

Ben blinks at her. “A suit? Uh...yes, I do have one, for funerals and things…”

Michelle waves a hand dismissively, pushing herself away from the counter and approaching him. “Never mind. Turn around, would you please?”

Ben looks even more confused but he obeys, turning around to face away from her.

Michelle takes a step closer to him, placing her hands on his shoulders. She measures their breadth using the span of her thumb and pinky finger.

“Lift your arms,” she orders, and once again Ben obeys, raising his arms for her. She puts her hands on his waist, smirking again as she feels him take a sudden, startled inhale in response to her touch, and takes her measurement there the same way.

She steps back, satisfied. “I’ll bring one of Johnny’s suits for you. It’ll be a little big, but I think I’ll have time to have it taken in a smidge before tonight.”

“Tonight?” Ben asks, turning around. He’s blushing again.

“Yes. You and I have a date at The White Widow Club, ten o’clock sharp,” Michelle replies briskly, returning to the cabinets to retrieve a coffee cup.

“We do?”

“We do. I got a lead on my story, but I might need a little extra… _persuasive power_ ,” Michelle says, pouring herself a cup of coffee from the percolator. “I know you have a core of steel in you—you barely flinched at Weiderman’s corpse. Bring it with you, but leave the camera at home this time. We’re undercover. Do you know how to shoot a pistol?”

“Do I know how to shoot a pistol?” Ben repeats, looking even more disoriented. “Ah...no, I’m afraid I don’t. It wasn’t advertised as a job requirement when I applied for the position.”

Michelle shrugs. “That’s alright. I know how to.”

Ben frowns. “Should I speak to a lawyer about getting my affairs in order before our _date_ tonight?”

Michelle smiles at him over the rim of her coffee mug. “I do appreciate your positive attitude in the face of potential danger, Reilly. A real go-getter, aren’t you?”

Ben returns her smile this time with a brittle, sardonic one of his own. “We’re in the midst of a terrible economic depression, Miss Jones. You’re asking me to risk a bullet on the job to pay my rent, or starve to death in the gutter. Beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll take my chances with you.”

Michelle lets out a soft huff of laughter. “Very well. I doubt it will come to that, but you never know on this beat. You get to see the very worst of humanity. Meet me back here at nine tonight and we’ll see how it goes.”

Ben takes a deep breath, setting the glass down on the countertop before giving her a grim smile. “It’s a date.” 

He gestures past her. “Well. I really should be on my way, or Jameson will chew me out in front of his pretty secretary again. Nothing could be more emasculating, current circumstances excluded. Goodbye for now, Miss Jones.”

“Call me MJ,” Michelle says. “All my friends do. I think you’ve earned the familiarity, since we now have so much in common.”

Ben flushes again, his eyes immediately dropping to his feet. But he lifts his chin a moment later, boldly meeting her eyes. 

“Goodbye, MJ,” he says.

“Goodbye, Benji,” Michelle says with another smirk, watching him walk out of the room.

Johnny comes sauntering into the kitchen a few minutes later, whistling a pleasant, cheerful tune, a newspaper tucked under his arm. He gathers Michelle up into an embrace, kissing her on both cheeks. 

“Hello, darling Shelly,” he greets brightly. “How was your patrol?”

“Quiet. I made coffee,” Michelle says, motioning to the percolator. She smiles at Johnny. “I think I may have scared your boy off.”

“Oh, I think he’ll be back,” Johnny says smugly as he pours himself a cup of coffee. He takes it to the table, sitting down and snapping open the newspaper. “I’d say he left a _very_ satisfied customer. Very satisfied, indeed.”

“Oh, to have a rich man’s confidence,” Michelle says drolly.

“Confidence, yes, _and_ skill, peach. Don’t sell me short.”

Michelle snorts, rolling her eyes. “And what about you, J? Has the muse been rekindled?”

“Mmm, yes--the flames of passion roar like an inferno today, kid. If I write a hit Broadway musical this year, you’ll know why,” Johnny says happily, sipping his coffee with a satisfied smack of his lips. 

Michelle rolls her eyes again. “You are absolutely incorrigible.”

“You know that’s why you’re so endeared to me,” Johnny says, giving her a cheeky grin.

Michelle shakes her head with a smile, pouring herself a second cup of coffee. “I need one of your suits today, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, what for?”

“For Reilly. I’m taking him with me to The White Widow tonight, and I need him to look the part,” Michelle replies, topping off Johnny’s coffee. “I’m going undercover, and I can’t have him looking like a tabloid vulture in the middle of that crowd. They’d have the bouncer toss him out in a heartbeat.”

“No problem. I have a suit that will make him look like a million bucks.”

“Good. Could you take it to your tailor to be altered this morning?” Michelle asks, taking a scrap of paper and a pencil out of a drawer and jotting down Ben’s rough measurements on it. She hands it to Johnny. “Here—his measurements.”

“No problem,” Johnny says again, tucking the paper into his pocket. He looks at her from under raised brows. “You know, darling, I’d be happy to come along with you.”

Michelle immediately shakes her head. “You know I can’t let you do that. It’s—“

“Too dangerous,” Johnny finishes for her, heaving a dramatic sigh and rolling his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know. But I have to at least offer to help, or my conscience would never let me sleep.”

Michelle goes to him, bending down to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss his cheek. “You can help me by staying here, darling, where it’s safe.”

Johnny takes one of her hands and kisses the back of it, giving her a fond look. “Anything for you, Shelly.”

Michelle quirks an eyebrow. “Anything?”

“ _Anything,_ ” Johnny repeats emphatically, kissing her hand again.

“In that case, I’ll need to borrow the Grand Prix tonight, too,” Michelle says slyly.

Johnny’s face instantly falls. 

“Oh, you _rat,_ ” he says, scowling. “You tricked me.”

“I didn’t—you said _anything_ ,” Michelle points out, grinning. “How am I supposed to get to the club tonight?”

“I don’t know—how about a pumpkin and a fairy godmother?” Johnny replies sarcastically. “That’s about as realistic an option as the Grand Prix.”

“You were going to let Reilly drive it,” Michelle reminds him. “A boy you only just met, who doesn’t even know how to _drive_.”

“I was desperate. You’ve kept me on a short leash for weeks—I had to do something drastic to win him over or I’d have gone completely bats.”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Give me the car, J.”

“Fine,” Johnny says petulantly, pouting at her. “But you have to promise to drive it like it’s made of glass. Swear to me there will be no wild car chases or reckless speeding while it’s in your care.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michelle says briskly as she goes for her third cup of coffee. “I’m only going to interview someone. It will be fine.”

“Sure it will,” Johnny says dryly, returning to his paper. “Who’s your unfortunate victim?”

“Harry Osborn. You ever talk to him before?”

Johnny shrugs. “Once or twice, maybe. Nice enough guy, but he always seems wrapped up in shady business, so I steer clear.” 

He squints at the paper. “Hey—there’s a story here about your tiger, Shelly. Looks like the Black Cat struck again—another body was dredged out of the Hudson. ID’d as Sergei Kravinoff.”

“Kraven the Hunter,” Michelle says grimly, quite familiar with the man. She still has a scar across her ribs from her last encounter with him. “He’s a hitman. Cut his teeth assassinating anarchists in Ukraine on behalf of the Reds before bringing his mercenary talents to our shores. Works for the Goblin. Rumor on the street is that he's in Gobby’s inner circle. Or was. Looks like the Cat’s hunting the big fish now.”

Johnny frowns. “Wonder what he’s after…”

Michelle shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. But I have some working theories.”

She straightens up, sighing. “I better get to work. Jameson will have my hide for letting someone else scoop this story. Who reported it?”

“None other than your pal Robbie Robertson.”

“Robbie? Of course. Damn him,” Michelle says ruefully, shaking her head. “As if a deranged murderer on the loose isn’t enough to worry about, I have Robbie taking the food out of my mouth.”

She starts towards her bedroom to dress, pausing to look over her shoulder at Johnny. “Don’t forget the suit, love.”

“I’ll have it ready by this evening,” Johnny promises, waving to her. “Have a lovely day, darling! Say hi to Benji for me!”

***

Michelle doesn’t go to the Daily Bugle offices, however.

Instead, she slips back out into the city as the Spider-Woman once more. The news of Kraven’s murder is too important of a development for her to ignore. Michelle is all too familiar with what a formidable foe Kraven the Hunter was. If the Cat’s managed to turn _him_ into fish food, then Michelle’s greatly underestimated just how dangerous her tiger is. 

No, Jameson will have to wait. He will threaten to fire her like he always does when she shows up late or doesn’t show up at all, but Michelle is familiar enough with him now to know that the bluster is all for show—she’s his best reporter, and he’d rather tolerate her eccentricities than lose her to a rival rag.

Michelle sticks to leaping from rooftop to rooftop and creeping along narrow alleyways rather than web-slinging across town in the open. Some uneasy tension sparked the morning of Charlie Weiderman’s grisly murder remains in her spine, a specter of dread that lingers right on the periphery, a sense of being observed like a spider under a magnifying glass.

_He’s watching you, now. He has a thousand eyes._

The Black Cat’s words ring in the back of her mind as she nimbly makes her way from rooftop to rooftop. A warning, she thinks, rather than a threat. 

_What are you after, tiger?,_ she muses to herself, dropping down into the narrow alleyway beside a bagel shop. She waits there with her back pressed to the wall, peering around the corner until a beat cop walks out of the shop, brushing crumbs off the front of his uniform.

Michelle whistles sharply. The cop glances her way, grimacing when he spots her. He sniffs and hocks a gob of spit onto the sidewalk, and then walks over to join her in the alleyway.

“How’s it goin’, Spidey,” he greets stiffly, lighting up a cigarette and casting wary glances over his shoulder towards the busy street.

“Morning, Flash,” Michelle replies, before cutting to the chase. “Sergei Kravinoff. What do you know?”

Flash shrugs. “Murdered. Body all shredded up, like the other victims. We suspect it’s the work of the Black Cat again. He’s got a beef with someone.”

“The Goblin.”

Flash nods, taking a long drag off the cigarette. “Seems like it.”

“And what are the police doing about it?”

“Nothing,” Flash says with another shrug. “Police commissioner wants us to turn a blind eye—he’s pals with Mayor Osborn, and it reflects pretty bad on Mr. Law-and-Order Mayor that there’s yet another masked vigilante roaming his streets, this one enacting extrajudicial executions.”

“So the police aren’t pursuing him?” Michelle asks, disappointed but not surprised.

“Nope,” Flash says, blowing out a rank cloud of smoke. “We ain’t gonna touch this one. Half the force is in the Goblin’s pocket. Other half is in the mayor’s, and he ain’t as clean as likes to pretend he is. It benefits both of ‘em to brush this under the rug and let the Goblin take out his own trash. If you wanna nab the Black Cat, you’re on your own.” 

He gives a grim smirk. “Might do the Cat a favor to catch him first. Gobby certainly won’t be merciful once he gets his talons in him.”

Michelle has to agree, remembering Charlie Weiderman’s gruesome end. 

“I’ll do my best,” she says. 

Flash nods, flicking away his cigarette. “Good luck out there, Spidey. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”

“I know,” Michelle says, before flying back up the side of the building to the rooftop above.

She perches there, eyes narrowed behind the lenses of her mask against the sharp white rays of the rising sun. 

Gwen Stacy. Peter Parker. Emilio Acuno. MacDonald Gargan. Morris Bench. Charlie Weiderman. Sergei Kravinoff. 

A deadly game.

_What are you after, tiger?_ Michelle wonders again, drumming her fingers against her thighs.

“Guess I’ll have to find you and ask,” she murmurs to herself, leaping out into thin air.

***

As luck would have it, Michelle finds her tiger almost right away.

Or rather—he finds her.

She’s navigating the narrow ridge of a building’s pitched roof when she feels the familiar tell-tale tingle at the back of her neck.

She spins around in a flash, her hand flying to her pistol, and finds herself nose-to-nose with the Black Cat.

“Hello, Spider,” he says, grinning at her from under his half-mask and green goggles. “Sorry about this.”

“About what—“ Michelle starts sharply, but her Spidey-sense is blaring again. 

Her eyes dart past his shoulder as two of the windows in the building behind them explode open in a shower of glass. A man appears in each window, one armed with a revolver and the other with a wicked-looking tommy gun.

“Them,” the Cat replies, still grinning.

Michelle rips her pistol out of her holster and takes aim at the man with the tommy gun right as a spray of bullets chews apart the shingles of the roof.

“And this!” the Cat shouts over the cacophony. 

He leaps forward and tackles Michelle. The two of them go flying off the roof. There’s an initial moment where time feels almost like it’s slowed to a near standstill with the pair of them suspended together in midair, their limbs entangled, surrounded by bullets and debris. And then they’re falling, plummeting towards the rapidly approaching ground.

Michelle twists around and extends an arm, firing off a web upwards towards one of the buildings. She lets out a breath as she feels it catch hold and gently stretch under the weight of her and the Cat’s falling bodies before coming to a jolting stop.

Michelle lets out another breath, her heart thumping against her sternum and her Spidey-sense still ringing as she and the Cat hang there on the silken line, swaying gently, their faces so close that their breath mingles as they pant from the rush of adrenaline. Michelle’s other arm is wrapped tight around the Cat’s shoulders, and his arms in turn are thrown around her neck and his legs locked around her hips, like a lover’s embrace. 

“Friends of yours?” Michelle asks him dryly, once she trusts her voice to be steady.

The Cat’s lips turn up in an amused smile. “Friends? What gave you that impression? Do your friends often try to murder you, Spider?”

“Former lovers have, occasionally.”

The Cat huffs out a soft laugh. “Well. There’s a thin line between lovers and enemies, in my experience.”

He leans closer, the green lenses of his goggles glinting in the sunlight.

“You saved me,” he murmurs, the ghost of his breath feathering Michelle’s lips through her mask.

“I caught you,” Michelle replies gruffly, tightening her grip on him. She has no intention of letting him get away again this time, finished with his tricks.

“My hero,” the Cat purrs, his voice low and husky, and then he’s kissing her, his mouth hot against hers through the thin fabric of her mask.

Michelle goes stiff from shock, feeling an unexpected heat flare low in her belly. Her arm tightens even more around his shoulders and he hums approvingly into her mouth, sending a little electric jolt racing down her spine to explode between her legs.

And then she’s falling again. 

Michelle blinks up in a mix of surprise and consternation at the Cat, who dangles now from a grappling hook by one hand, the other still held up with claws extended after slicing through her web. He blows her a kiss before the hook’s cable retracts, pulling him up and out of her reach.

Michelle lands hard in an open pile of trash on the street below, sending a crowd of rats squeaking and scurrying away from their rotten feast. She lies there for a moment, her body throbbing from the impact, before she hauls herself upright.

She brushes away the mess of spoiled fruit and vegetables clinging to her suit, and then digs her dropped pistol out of the garbage. She stumbles out of the pile of trash, ignoring the pedestrians who have stopped to point and gawk.

Michelle stands on the sidewalk and scans the empty rooftops overhead, flustered and scowling.

“Damn it all,” she mutters, stalking away.


	6. BODY HEAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **!!PUTTING A WARNING UP TOP!!** for a brief use of racist language in this chapter.

Michelle is still smarting from her fall hours later, though it’s her dignity that pains her now rather than her body as she sits at her vanity in her bedroom and readies herself for her “date” with Harry Osborn, liberally dousing herself in perfume in an attempt to cover up the faint lingering odor of garbage still clinging to her skin after several baths.

Jameson had chewed her out when she’d finally arrived at the office hours late, just as she’d anticipated. But she’d caught a lucky break when Ben had rescued her by coming to Jameson’s office with a stack of photos he’d managed to capture of the Black Cat, interrupting Jameson’s tirade. Jameson had hated every single one of the pictures, launching into a new rant to highlight all their many sins—too far away, too blurry, bad angle, unprintable garbage, garbage, garbage.

Michelle had managed to slip away while Jameson’s ire was focused on poor Ben instead of her. She thinks Mr. Reilly is useful in more ways than one, even if he lacks talent as a photographer. Later, Ben had brought the rejected photos to her, and Michelle had spent too much time examining them, even though they really weren’t clear enough to give her any worthwhile detail. 

Michelle has always loved a good mystery, and she tells herself that it’s only natural that a dangerous enigma like the Black Cat would intrigue her. But her body betrays the lie—the kiss they shared lingers in the back of her mind, burned there like a brand. She feels a flush of heat every time she thinks about it, about their limbs wrapped around each other and their mingled breath.

She frowns at her reflection in the mirror above the vanity as she pins her hair into sleek waves. She’s lost the thread on this case, she thinks. She’s made too many mistakes, gotten distracted, sloppy. And getting sloppy gets you killed in this line of work. 

_Curiosity killed the cat._ It could kill the spider, too, if she’s not more careful.

There’s a knock at the bedroom door followed by a low whistle.

“Helloooo, gorgeous,” Johnny says with a grin as he comes into the bedroom, the suit folded over his arm. He lays it on the bed and then walks over behind Michelle, bending to plant a kiss on her cheek.

“I’ve brought your suit and your date,” he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. 

“Thank you, J,” Michelle says with a smile. She turns and finds Ben standing in the doorway to the bedroom, looking a little uncomfortable to be present in a lady’s boudoir. “Hello, Mr. Reilly.”

Ben offers her a polite smile. “Hello, Miss Jones. You look very nice.”

“Very nice?” Johnny repeats, eyebrows raised with mock consternation. “She’s more than _very nice._ She’s a stunner. Ravishing. Face it, kid, you just hit the jackpot.”

“Quit teasing him, darling, and help him dress,” Michelle gently admonishes, turning back towards the mirror to finish getting ready.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Johnny says with playful eagerness, going over to hustle Ben into the room.

Michelle smiles, shaking her head and starting to apply lipstick. She watches their reflection in the corner of the mirror as Johnny fusses with the suit while Ben undresses, clearly flustered by her continued presence in the room. He’s pretty underneath his shabby clothes, lean and defined like a dancer, and Michelle can understand why Johnny is so smitten with him.

“There,” Johnny says brightly, fixing Ben’s collar. “How does he look?”

“Like a million bucks,” Michelle says approvingly, getting up to walk over to them, brushing her hands over the sleek black silk perfectly fitted to Ben’s shoulders.

“Counterfeit,” Ben adds drolly.

“You’ll fit right in with the crowd at The White Widow,” Johnny says, grinning as he smooths down the jacket’s lapels. “I’d say quite a few of Felicia’s customers know their way around a counterfeit dollar. Now, Harry Osborn doesn’t need to pull any of those tricks...”

“Harry Osborn has other things to worry about,” Michelle says as she returns to her vanity. She takes her pistol out of the drawer and slips it into her beaded handbag.

She turns, a grim smile turning up the corners of her crimson-stained lips as she walks back over to the pair, her heels clicking on the hardwood.

“Well, Mr. Reilly,” Michelle says, slipping her arm through Ben’s. “Shall we head off on our date?”

***

The murder of one of its dancer hasn’t slowed the traffic to Felicia Hardy’s club. It’s packed to the gills when Michelle and Ben arrive, booze and cash flowing freely. Men in expensive suit jackets smoke cigars and play cards at tables in dark, hazy corners, drinks in hand and laps full of young female flesh while scantily clad dancers shimmy onstage to the band’s sultry tunes.

“So. What’s the plan here?” Ben murmurs to her as they make their way across the crowded floor. He keeps tugging at the collar of his shirt.

“Very simple—we find Harry Osborn and politely request an interview,” Michelle replies, pulling his hand away from his collar and placing it on her hip. 

“Politely? What was all that talk about the pistol for, then?” Ben asks dryly, moving his hand up to her shoulder.

“I always carry it. The city can be a dangerous place for a lady, Mr. Reilly,” Michelle murmurs as she scans the crowd for any sight of Harry, moving Ben’s hand back to her hip. “Try to pretend you’re glad to be here with me, Benji darling.”

Ben snorts softly. “Don’t take it personally, Miss Jones. It’s the environment that I dislike, not the company. A street rat like me isn’t used to wearing a monkey suit and rubbing elbows with dames wearing diamonds bigger than their eyeballs. I’d love to be anywhere else with you.”

Michelle casts a sideways look at him, smiling, and then she spies Felicia Hardy making her way towards them, trailed at a polite distance by her personal bodyguard, a great hulking slab of a man aptly called Tombstone. The bodyguard’s dressed in all black, the extra bulk of his suit under his arms suggesting that he’s packing heat. He glowers at Michelle and Ben from his position behind his mistress, the black of his suit amplifying the powdery pallor of his skin.

Felicia on the other hand is dressed head-to-toe in white again, her platinum blonde hair styled to hide the scar on her face behind a soft, swooping wave. 

“Well, hello, kitten. Aren’t you scrumptious this evening,” she purrs, looking Michelle up and down with a sly smile before turning her attention to Ben. “Who’s your handsome fella?”

“Benjamin Reilly,” Michelle replies. “He’s a photographer with the Bugle.”

“Felicia Hardy.” Felicia extends a white gloved hand for Ben to shake, then casts an inquisitive look at Michelle. “I’m assuming you two aren’t here to enjoy a cocktail and some jazz. Is your boy even old enough to drink?”

“I’ll show you my birth certificate if you show me your liquor license,” Ben says pleasantly.

Felicia raises an eyebrow at him, smirking. “Kid’s got a mouth on him. I like that.”

“We’re here looking for Harry Osborn,” Michelle tells her. 

“You’re in luck—he’s right over there,” Felicia says, gesturing over to a table near the stage, where a thin, hollow-eyed young man sits drinking by himself, tapping his fingers on the tabletop in time to the beat of the music.

“I need to speak to him alone,” Michelle says. “Somewhere private. Can you arrange that?”

Felicia purses her lips unhappily, adjusting her fur stole on her bare shoulders. 

“You know the rules, Miss Jones. The club’s neutral ground. If reporters start coming in here sticking their noses in my customers’ business, they’ll stop coming in,” she says. She takes a deep breath, tossing back her hair. “But...I like you, kitten, and you and me have an arrangement, so…”

Felicia points towards the back of the building, at an arched doorway concealed behind heavy velvet curtains. “Head through those curtains there. I’ll send Mr. Osborn along momentarily.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Hardy,” Michelle says, slipping her arm through Ben’s again and leading him towards the doorway.

They pass through the curtains and into a quiet, perfume-scented private room beyond. There’s an ornate round table near the back wall, lined with a rounded bench covered in velvet and silk cushions. Paintings of nude women in vaguely erotic poses hang on the walls, the whole atmosphere dripping with hedonistic luxury.

“What do you need me to do?” Ben asks, drumming his fingers against his thigh.

“I need you to act tough if Mr. Osborn decides to be uncooperative,” Michelle replies, sitting down at the table. She opens her little handbag and takes her pistol out, checking the magazine.

“Good God,” Ben says, his eyes wide behind his spectacles. “I thought you were joking about the gun.”

“I never joke about the gun, Mr. Reilly,” Michelle replies with a droll smile, putting the pistol back into her handbag. “Chin up, sweetheart. You’re more wound up over a simple interview than you were over Weiderman’s corpse. Can I trust you, Benji?”

Ben shoots a look her way, a funny, unreadable expression on his face. “Of course, Miss Jones.”

“Good,” Michelle murmurs, angling her body towards the doorway and crossing her legs so the slit of her silk dress opens, revealing bare skin up to her thighs. “Here he comes.”

The curtains part, and Harry Osborn stumbles through, his face flushed with drink. He blinks owlishly for a moment, and then a drunken leer turns ups the corners of his mouth as his eyes appreciatively drink Michelle in, lingering on the exposed length of her legs.

Michelle smiles back at him, uncrossing and then recrossing her legs just to reel him in a little further. “Hello, Mr. Osborn.”

“Hello, doll face,” Harry replies, a wolfish leer still on his face as stalks towards the table. He plunks himself down beside her, putting an arm along the back of the bench behind Michelle’s shoulders and leaning in towards her. “Shall I order some champagne?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Michelle replies, brisk and businesslike as she takes a pencil and a small notebook out of her handbag. “We’d just like to ask you a few questions, and then we’ll leave you to enjoy your night.”

Harry frowns in confusion, blinking rapidly again. “We?”

He glances around, finally noticing Ben standing silently by the doorway. His frown turns into a scowl. “I was promised a private show. Beat it, buddy.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Michelle says. “Please, Mr. Osborn. This will only take a moment.”

Harry drops his arm from her shoulders and straightens up, his eyes flicking between her and Ben. “Who are you?” 

“My name is Michelle Jones. I’m a reporter with the Daily Bugle, and this is my assistant, Benjamin Reilly,” Michelle replies. “I’m investigating the murder of Gwendolyne Stacy.”

A shadow flits across Harry’s face. He sniffs, looking down at the tabletop as he clambers back up to his feet. “I have no idea who that is. Sorry. I’ll be on my way now if you don’t—”

“Don’t be cute, pal,” Ben says, coming up behind Harry. He grabs him by the shoulders and presses him down onto the bench on the other side of the table from Michelle. 

Harry glares at him, his face going even redder with fury. “How dare you put your hands on me. Do you know who my father is?”

Michelle ignores his protests, snapping her fingers under his nose to get his attention. “Gwen Stacy. You were interested in her, prior to her untimely demise. Romantically interested.”

“With a _dancer_ at a nightclub? Absolutely not. Look, sure I was friendly with her--I’m friendly with all the girls here. I come here to enjoy their company. But I’m not going to--to kill some showgirl. What’s the point?”

“I don’t know—she rejected your advances, maybe you felt like you had to put her in her place,” Michelle says, leaning forward with narrowed eyes. “You strike me as a man who doesn’t take _no_ very well.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Harry shoots back indignantly. “You think I care about what some penniless no-name dancer at a club that’s a step above a cathouse thinks about me?”

“Watch how you talk about her,” Ben says sharply. “You’re no better than her. Show some respect for the dead, you gutless weasel.”

“Gutless weasel?” Harry sputters, incensed. “Buddy, you’re asking for—“

Michelle interrupts him. “Let’s say you didn’t murder her...do you have any knowledge of who did?”

Harry’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, his eyes flicking from Michelle to Ben to the doorway. “I don’t know anything about—“

“Ben Parker,” Michelle cuts in, her voice like a knife. “You knew him, didn’t you? He was your driver, until he met an unfortunate end. Mauled by dogs, the police report said… _murdered._ And you know who ordered it, don’t you, Mr. Osborn?”

Harry’s face has gone bone-white. 

Michelle leans in closer. “The Goblin. Who is he?”

Harry leaps up off the bench like it’s stung him, his forehead shining with sweat.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about. I think we’re done here,” he insists, trying to get away, only for Ben to shove him back down.

“Answer her questions,” Ben growls.

An angry, frightened flush creeps back across Harry’s face as he glares at Ben. “Why should I listen to you, huh? You’re a tabloid rat in a borrowed suit, licking the heels of an uppity little negress—“

Ben pops him in the face with a vicious right hook, snapping Harry’s head back. Blood sprays out of his nose, spattering the tabletop and Michelle’s notebook.

“You—you bastard!” Harry screeches nasally, clutching at his gushing face. “You broke my nose! I’ll have you arrested for assault! I’ll sue the paper!”

“Oh, well done, Reilly,” Michelle says dryly, irritated. “That concludes our interview.”

“I’m so sorry, Miss Jones,” Ben says, shaking out his hand. “He said those ugly things about you, and I just saw red.”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “A gallant gesture, Mr. Reilly, but I really don’t need you to defend my—“

Her spider-sense starts blaring shrilly.

She sweeps a leg out and knocks Harry sideways out of the booth and then leaps out herself, grabbing Ben and carrying him with her to the ground just as the deafening sound of gunfire rings out.

Ben rolls them over until he lies on top of Michelle, his arms wrapped protectively around her head as a seemingly endless rain of bullets shreds the heavy curtains pulled across the doorway and chews into the table where they had sat just moments before, reducing it to splinters.

The gunfire finally pauses. Michelle can hear the men on the other side of the doorway reloading their guns over the sound of her and Ben’s harsh panting and Harry’s soft moaning a few feet away. She scrambles out from under Ben and grabs her handbag from the wreckage of the table, snatching out her pistol. 

Harry moans louder. Michelle crawls over to him. He’s bleeding sluggishly from the shoulder, injured by a bullet or maybe shrapnel, but it doesn’t look life-threatening. Michelle takes his hand and presses it to the wound.

“Keep pressure on that,” she bites out, her spider-sense still ringing loudly. 

She looks towards the doorway, seeing the figure of a man standing on the other side of the threshold. He pushes the tatters of the curtains aside with the barrel of a tommy gun, ducking his head as he steps through the doorway.

Michelle raises her pistol, taking aim at him from her prone position on the floor, but Ben is already up on the man. He grabs the barrel of the gun and smashes it backwards into the gunman’s face, sending him sprawling. Another gunman immediately appears in his place, his pistol aimed at Ben’s head, but Michelle is faster, swinging her own gun around towards him and squeezing the trigger. 

The shot knocks the pistol out of the man’s hand with a spurt of blood. The gunman howls in agony, clutching his bleeding limb, but then he’s silently crumpling to the ground after Ben drives a knee into his gut.

“Leave him,” Ben grounds out, rushing over to snatch Michelle under the arms and drag her up and away from Harry, who still lies moaning on the floor amidst the shattered table. 

“My notebook,” Michelle says breathlessly, blowing a strand of hair that’s come unpinned out of her face. “All my notes for my story…”

“Leave it, too. You can’t write your story if you’re dead,” Ben says, seizing her hand and tugging her close. 

Michelle stumbles after him, pausing a moment to reach down and yank her heels off her feet with a low curse, flinging them away.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Ben urges, hustling her towards the doorway.

Another bullet whizzes past Michelle’s ear as they step through into the chaos beyond the ragged remains of the curtains, the jazz music now replaced with shouts and screams and the sound of gunfire being exchanged. Ben pulls her closer, putting an arm over her head again, but Michelle bats it away to make it easier to aim her pistol. Her spider-sense is still screaming, like lightning racing up and down her spine.

A dancer in a gossamer-thin slip runs in front of Michelle and Ben, tripping and falling. Michelle bends to help the sobbing girl up, and as she rises she finds herself looking into the muzzle of a gun. She pulls the girl behind herself and on instinct she flicks her wrist out only to remember that she’s wearing an evening gown instead of her tactical suit and her web shooters are at home.

Michelle brings her pistol up instead, but the crack of a gun firing rings out over the general cacophony of the room before she can pull the trigger. 

She flinches, but it’s the gunman who falls. 

Felicia Hardy stands behind him, a whisper of smoke curling from the end of the revolver in her hand. She sweeps the trail of her white dress behind herself with a flick of her leg.

“Come on, kitten. Time for you and blondie to split. Follow me,” she says, striding away through the chaos.

Michelle and Ben trot along behind her as Felicia leads them through another door behind the stage and down a long hallway.

They come to a second door, where Felicia’s bodyguard stands with a sawed-off shotgun at the ready. He pushes the door open to a narrow alleyway when he spots them approaching.

“Go on. We’ll hold them off for you,” Felicia tells Michelle and Ben. “Stick to side roads and whatever you do, don’t stop for any cops. The Maggia have half the force paid off.”

“What about you?” Michelle asks.

“I can take care of myself, honey,” Felicia replies with a grim little smirk, cocking her revolver. “Run along now, kitty cats.”

Michelle grabs Ben as the sound of gunfire echoes from down the hall, dragging him down the alley towards the main street where the Grand Prix is parked.

Her spider-sense warns her again as she steps out of the mouth of the alleyway. She drops to a crouch, tugging Ben down with her as a bullet bites a chunk of concrete off the wall behind her. More shots follow.

“Damn,” Michelle grumbles, lifting her head to try to see where the gunfire is coming from.

Ben immediately grabs her and wrestles her back down.

“Christ, lady, are you completely bats?” he hisses. “You’re asking for a hole in the head.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Michelle retorts crossly, flinging his arms off. She stands, another bullet whizzing by her head. 

Ben makes an irritated sound, leaping to his own feet. He grabs her again, this time throwing her bodily across his shoulders and hightailing it towards the Grand Prix while a spew of bullets follows.

“Slow down, I can’t aim well when you’re jostling me,” Michelle complains, clutching her pistol in both hands to try to keep the muzzle steady as she bounces against his shoulders. 

Ben starts laughing, a sound somewhere between incredulity and reckless joy. He ignores her command, sprinting across the street to the Grand Prix and yanking the driver’s side door open. He tosses Michelle inside and crawls in after her, pushing her across the gearbox into the passenger seat right as another bullet shatters the rear window.

Ben turns the ignition and floors it, the tires screaming as the Grand Prix peels away from the curb. More bullets pepper the back of the car, but then Ben is pulling away from their assailants, expertly weaving between traffic, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“I thought you said you couldn’t drive,” Michelle calls out above the roar of the engine as Ben takes a hairpin turn down an alleyway.

“I lied,” Ben says tersely, jerking the wheel to avoid a pedestrian in their path. “Keep your goddamn head down.”

Michelle doesn’t listen to him, leaning out her window to point her pistol at the car full of gunmen that’s still hot on their heels. She takes aim and squeezes off two shots. The first shatters the car’s windshield and the second bursts the front tire, sending the car spinning before it slams into a lamppost.

Ben doesn’t slow down, tearing down a maze of narrow side roads and dark alleyways, until suddenly they’re driving past a row of abandoned warehouses perched along the Hudson.

Ben pulls inside one of the empty warehouses, the engine of the Grand Prix an echoing hum inside the dark, cavernous space. He finally comes to a stop there, yanking up the parking brake and turning the engine off.

There’s a long moment of silence disturbed only by their breathing and the soft metallic pings coming from the overheated engine. Michelle finally straightens up, looking over at Ben with one eyebrow raised.

“Can’t drive, huh?” she remarks dryly. “Funny thing to lie about.”

Ben lets out a soft huff of laughter, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the steering wheel. 

“I’d prefer to call it a bit of harmless flirtation rather than a lie,” he says. “Johnny wasn’t exactly subtle about his… _interest._ I could tell he’s a little bit of a show off—this car gives that away. So I let him think he knows something I don’t. A lot of men like to feel like they know more than everyone around them. It’s a little ego boost. Everyone likes to feel powerful.” 

He turns his head to the side to look at her, offering her a crooked smile. “But you don’t strike me as a woman who’d ever allow a man to think he knows more than you do.”

Michelle smiles back. “No. But that’s a matter of survival. Men look at me and they already think I know half as much as they do. Why give them more ammunition?”

“You shouldn’t,” Ben agrees, lifting his head. “Speaking of ammunition—you’re a hell of a good shot with that pistol. Can I see it?”

Michelle hands him her pistol. He takes it, carefully examining it in the dim light, running his fingers over the grip.

“Colt 1911,” he remarks. “Standard-issue sidearm of the U.S. Armed Forces. You know someone who fought in the war?”

“My father. That was his pistol. He fought in one of the all-Black regiments—25th Infantry.”

“Your father’s a hero,” Ben says, handing the pistol back to Michelle.

She offers him a brittle smile. “You wouldn’t know it from the way folks treated him when he came back home. He never let it get him down, though. He always believed we could achieve a better world, a more equitable world, if we fought hard enough for it. So. He’ll always be my hero. Everything I do...everything I am...I learned it from him.”

“He must be really proud of you.”

“He’s dead,” Michelle replies matter-of-factly. “Heart attack, when I was seventeen. He fell and hit his head on the concrete floor in his boxing gym, and...that was it. Lights out. My mother had long since passed by then, so I had to get by mostly on my own after that.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, his eyes serious.

Michelle shrugs. “It’s alright. That’s just life, sometimes. I try to live out his values now. Keep his memory alive in the community.”

“Well. I think you’re a real marvel, Miss Jones,” Ben says, giving her a soft smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Benji,” Michelle replies, returning the smile. “And please—it’s MJ.”

“MJ,” Ben corrects himself. He takes a breath, gripping the steering wheel. “So...how mad will Johnny be about the car?”

“Oh, he’ll act like murdered his mother,” Michelle says, her smile turning into a sardonic smirk. She casts a sly, sideways look at Ben. “But if you let him take that suit off you, I’m sure all sins will be forgiven.”

She can see the flush that spreads across his cheeks even in the dimness, her smirk curling higher.

Ben lets out another soft huff of laughter. “That’s getting off easy, I guess.”

He softly clears his throat, flexing his fingers around the steering wheel.

“Your relationship with Johnny…” he starts, before trailing off.

“It’s real, insofar as we truly love each other,” Michelle explains, answering the unspoken question. “Johnny’s my dearest friend—there’s no one in the world that I trust more. My mother was his nanny. We practically grew up together. There’s an understanding that we can’t satisfy certain appetites for each other, but our relationship allows us social privileges and protections in a society that would otherwise be very hard on both of us, for a variety of reasons. You must have some understanding of that.”

Ben nods. “I do.”

He looks over at her, smiling again, but there’s something almost sorrowful and wounded in his eyes. 

“I think it must be really nice to have someone who loves you like that, no matter who you are or what you’ve done,” he tells her. “You’re lucky.”

“I am,” Michelle agrees.

She reaches over, taking one of Ben’s hands from the wheel. She runs her thumb over his knuckles, bruised and split from meeting Harry Osborn’s face.

“Come on,” Michelle says gently. “Let’s go home.”

***

Michelle shimmies out of her evening gown and silk slip, leaving the garments lying in a careless heap on the bathroom floor while she stalks naked over to the vanity. She sets to unpinning her hair and smearing cold cream over her face while she runs a hot bath for herself, eager to wash away the grime of the night.

She wishes she could wash away the sense of frustrated failure she feels, as well. Her “date” with Harry Osborn had been a complete bust, yielding no new clues that will help her find Gwen Stacy’s murderer or the identity of the Goblin and his role in all this. All she seems to find on this case are more loose ends and bullet holes.

Michelle climbs into the bathtub, sinking down low into the water with a deep sigh. She closes her eyes and leans her head back, letting her hair hang over the side of the tub while the steam rises in soft curls around her.

_When you get knocked down, you always get right back up. If someone wants you to stay down, you make them work themselves to the bone for it._

Her father’s voice comes to her out of a memory of the past—the smell of sweat and chalk and leather in his gym, the soft, playful thump of his boxing glove on the side of her head when she failed to bring her own tiny fists up in time to defend herself, scuffing her elbows on the mat as she tumbled down and hauling herself back up again, over and over and over.

And here and now, to another girl who’d never get a chance to pick herself up again.

A life. A promise. A red rose on a pillow.

_To Gwendy, all my love forever and always, P._

_I won’t give up on you, Gwen, no matter what,_ Michelle silently promises, sinking lower into the steaming water.

There’s a soft tap at the bathroom door, and then Johnny’s opening it and coming inside with a tumbler of Scotch in hand.

“I’m assuming from the tragic state of the Grand Prix that you had a rough night, darling,” he says with a sympathetic smile as he hands her the Scotch.

“Awful,” Michelle replies, taking a long gulp of the amber liquid. She tilts her head back, smiling up at him coyly. “Better with you here.”

“I’m always here, kid—a permanent fixture of the landscape whether you like it or not,” Johnny says with a grin as he starts to unbutton his shirt. He strips under her amused gaze and then hops into the bath with her, sloshing water everywhere.

“Careful! You’ll ruin the floorboards,” Michelle admonishes, but Johnny just scoffs.

“The floorboards can go to the devil,” Johnny says carelessly as he reclines against the other end of the bathtub. “I’ll rip them out and replace them with fine Italian marble. Only the best for my darling Shelly. Only the best for _me_ , too, while we’re at it.”

“Oh, heavens, I’m a lucky gal,” Michelle says drolly, rolling her eyes as she drains the rest of the Scotch in a single long swallow.

The alcohol and the company helps assuage her dark mood a little, the tension she’s been carrying in her shoulders for days relaxing a few degrees.

“I’m sorry about the Grand Prix, J,” she murmurs, eyes half-lidded.

Johnny shrugs. “C’est la vie. I’m just glad _you’re_ in one piece, peach.”

He lifts his head to peer at her, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. “You _are_ in one piece, right?”

Michelle doesn’t answer right away, toying with the tumblr in her hand so the amber dregs roll around the bottom. She isn’t sure how to answer the question honestly, not to Johnny and not even to herself—how would she explain her grief for a dead girl she’s never even met, or for the sweet, brilliant, broken boy the girl had loved, for the life they promised to share together, the life that was cruelly stolen from them? And how does she explain her dangerous infatuation with their suspected murderer...

A soft cough interrupts her musings. Ben stands in the doorway, eyes turned politely down towards his feet.

“Sorry to intrude—would you like me to just leave the suit on the bed before I leave?” he asks. 

He’s unbuttoned the collar of his dress shirt, and Michelle finds her eyes traveling along the strong sharp line of his jaw and down to the exposed hollow of his throat.

She looks at him, tilting her head and running her tongue over her teeth. She can feel the Scotch warming her belly and her cheeks now, and a deeper, headier heat between her thighs.

She raises the empty glass in her hand. “Set this on the vanity for me, Mr. Reilly.”

Ben immediately does what she asks, taking the glass from her and carefully setting it on the vanity, keeping his gaze politely averted the whole time.

Michelle lays her arms along the rim of the bathtub.

“Look at me, Benji,” she orders. 

Ben hesitates this time, his eyes flicking over to Johnny first. 

Johnny just grins wickedly at him, shifting over in the tub to slide behind Michelle. He wraps an arm around her, his fingers plucking playfully at the dark peaks of her breasts as he rests his chin on her shoulder.

Ben watches, wetting his lips with his tongue, and then he drags his eyes up to meet Michelle’s.

She lifts an arm, beckoning to him. “Come here.”


	7. THE DARK MIRROR

Michelle wakes to watery early morning sunlight filtering through the window blinds. She stretches overused muscles, careful not to disturb Johnny, who lies sprawled out fast asleep beside her.

She stretches again and then rolls over away from him, only to find that side of the bed empty, the sunshine coming through the blinds laying ribbons of light and shadow across the rumpled sheets like tiger stripes.

Michelle crawls out of bed and pads nude over to the closet to get Johnny’s robe. She slips it on as she wanders out into the hallway. She thinks at first that Ben must have slipped away in the predawn hours while she and Johnny still slept, deep and sated from the midnight entertainments, but then she spies his shoes still sitting by the door.

She finds him in the office off the foyer, sitting at her desk. The folder containing the documents she’s collected on Gwen’s case are spread out on the desktop before him. He holds the photograph of Gwen that Felicia Hardy had given Michelle the day she’d brought the case to her, studying it with a look of deep concentration on his face, a furrow between his brows.

Ben lifts his head as Michelle comes to stand in the doorway, offering her a small, tired smile. 

“Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to snoop, but I couldn’t sleep after last night’s business at the club. I thought I’d try my hand at playing detective, but...well,” he says, his smile turning wry and his tone self-deprecating, “there’s a reason I’m just a photographer.”

Michelle returns his smile. “You’re exactly what I need you to be, Benji.” 

Ben’s smile briefly curls wider, before his eyes drop to the photograph in his hand once more, a shadow passing over his face.

“She was a real pretty girl,” he murmurs. “It’s a shame, what happened to her.”

“It’s a crime,” Michelle says, a hint of steel in her voice, like the edge of a knife. 

“And yet the police don’t seem bothered to do anything about it,” Ben notes a little bitterly, frowning at the photo.

“No, they don’t,” Michelle agrees. _The city’s little lost souls belong to me._

Ben clears his throat softly. He sets the photograph on the desk but continues to keep his eyes lowered to it.

“You, uh...you mentioned another name, when we spoke with Harry Osborn last night,” he says. “Ben Parker.”

“Yes. He was Peter Parker’s uncle,” Michelle explains. “Murdered, as well. His widow seems to believe it’s connected to Harry Osborn somehow. Mr. Parker was his driver.”

Ben’s eyes flick up to her face. “You spoke to his widow?”

“Briefly. She was understably reluctant to talk to a tabloid reporter about the violent deaths of her entire family.”

Ben drops his head again, blinking rapidly behind his spectacles, his shoulders making a small, convulsive movement.

“Ben...if this story is too much for you, I can ask Jameson to reassign you,” Michelle offers gently. “After what happened last night, I completely understand if you prefer not to continue with me.”

Ben takes a sharp breath, letting out a weak laugh. “Sorry, sorry—don’t think I’m going soft on you, Miss Jones. I can handle the job, I swear, I just, uh...I wasn’t expecting to get this up close and personal with… _murders_ , you know? I was just looking for a way to pay my rent, and here I am, taking pictures of corpses and running from a bunch of goons with guns who wanna pump us full of holes.”

“Right where you're supposed to be,” Michelle assures him. “Remember—you got us out of that mad scrape last night. Heaven only knows where’d I’d be without you.”

She walks over to him. He sits back in the chair as she approaches, holding his arms open to her. Michelle settles in his lap, pressing his head to her collarbone.

“You saved me,” she murmurs, running her fingers through his hair. 

Ben says nothing, but his arms tighten around her.

“Your hair’s gone curly,” Michelle remarks, twisting a blonde lock around her fingers and playfully tugging it.

Ben lets out a soft huff of air against her collarbone then, turning his head to press his face into the side of her neck. “It’s from the bath. It curls when it gets wet if I don’t tame it quick enough.”

“I like it,” Michelle says. She takes his face in her hands and tilts it up, leaning in to capture his mouth in a lingering kiss.

“If I’m taking something you’re not willing to give, tell me,” she murmurs against his lips. 

“I’d give you anything you asked for, Miss Jones,” Ben replies earnestly, his eyes soft as he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Anything at all.”

Michelle’s lips curve into a smile against his as she kisses him again. 

“Sweet boy…” she murmurs, rubbing their noses together as she toys with the collar of his shirt. “Come back to bed. It’s still early.”

She gets up, holding a hand out to him. He takes it and she draws him out of the chair, leading him down the hallway past the bedroom where Johnny still sleeps, to her own room at the end of the hall.

Michelle slips out of her robe as soon as she crosses the threshold, letting it pool at her feet. Ben’s hands are immediately on her, mapping the bare skin over her hips and breasts and stomach, and then down between her thighs, his body warm and solid where it presses against her back.

She lets him tease her until her toes are starting to curl, and then she turns in his embrace, her mouth finding his again while her hands tug impatiently at his clothes. They fumble the garments off together in between kisses and caresses, finally falling naked into bed.

Last night’s tryst had been a wet tangle of limbs and mouths, but now that Michelle has Ben all to herself, she takes her time exploring the lean lines of his body, mapping all those places that make him gasp and squirm and filing it away for later.

“How’d you get this?” she asks, ghosting the tips of her fingers over a pink puckered scar along his ribs.

“Would you believe me if I told you I got stabbed?” Ben asks with a smile.

“I think I would, as a matter of fact,” Michelle replies, amused. “You might look like a librarian on the surface, but you’re full of surprises, Mr. Reilly. I rather enjoy the mystery.”

“I’m not mysterious,” Ben insists, his breath hitching as she slides a hand down his taut stomach to take him in hand. “You just haven’t asked the right questions yet.”

Michelle snorts softly, leisurely stroking him. “A rather rude accusation to make of a seasoned reporter, kid. What questions should I be asking?”

Ben doesn’t answer, sitting up. He flips her over onto her back and tugs her down to the end of the bed. He slides off onto the floor, kneeling between her open legs, his eyes on hers and his mouth on the sensitive crease where her thigh meets her hip. His fingers glide over a silvery scar of her own, high up on her inner thigh.

“And how did _you_ get _this?_ ” he murmurs, the featherlight brush of his lips so near to the heated, pulsing center of her making her shiver. 

Michelle pushes herself up onto her elbows, smirking at him. “Would you believe me if I told you I was stabbed?”

Ben smiles against the soft skin of her thigh. “After last night? Absolutely. You’re not what you appear to be, either, Miss Jones.”

He runs the flat of his tongue over her scar, and then he dips his head down between her thighs to taste her there, where she’s hot and aching and wet with want.

Michelle drops back on the rumpled sheets, her fingers tangling in his hair as she lets herself come undone again, her mind miles away from murder for the moment.

***

“So...where do we go with the case from here?” Ben asks later, tracing patterns on Michelle’s damp, naked back with the tip of his finger. “You still think the Black Cat is the main suspect?”

She turns over to face him, smiling as she cups his cheek in her hand. “You _really_ want to stick with me? Even after last night?”

“I’d go anywhere with you, MJ,” Ben replies, turning his head to kiss the palm of her hand. He smiles at her. “To Hell and back, if I have to.”

“Darling Benji” Michelle murmurs affectionately, running the pad of her thumb over his brow bone. “I’m glad you came to me.”

She settles onto her back, her expression turning thoughtful. “As for the case and the Black Cat...we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle, but I got a hunch I know who has it.”

“Harry Osborn?”

“Bingo. Gargan, Bench, Acuno and Kravinoff all had ties to the Goblin. If the Cat has a feud with Gobby, it might make sense for him to go after the Goblin’s associates. But how do we explain Gwen and the Parkers, in that case? All my intel and research says they were clean, but they’re too connected for their murders to be mere coincidence or accident.”

Michelle shakes her head, pursing her lips and frowning in thought. 

“No…” she says finally. “They’re involved somehow, and Harry Osborn is the connection. He knows something...something he told Ben Parker, something in connection to the Goblin, and Parker paid the price. Did you see how Harry reacted when we questioned him last night? That wasn’t just a man annoyed with being pestered by the press...he was scared. Terrified, even. If we want to uncover who the Goblin is and get to the bottom of these murders, we have to go through Harry, I think.”

Ben exhales sharply through his nose, propping himself up on an elbow and offering her a brittle smile. “Well. Good luck with that. After last night, I can’t imagine you’ll ever get another interview with him again.”

Michelle looks up at him, the corner of her mouth curling into a smirk. “Never say never, Mr. Reilly.”

***

Ben is partially correct—Michelle would never be allowed to get within fifteen feet of the young Mr. Osborn, much less get him to sit for an interview.

Which is why she’s currently web-slinging across town under the cover of darkness towards the looming spire of the Oscorp Building as her alter-ego. The Spider goes where she pleases. The Osborns may be richer than Croesus and have all the politicians and cops in their silk-lined pockets, but wealth is a paper shield when it comes between them and her particular brand of vigilante justice. 

Michelle swoops over the massive, grimacing gargoyles perched on the ledge of the Osborn Building’s roof, disturbing a flock of pigeons nesting between the stony guardians’ clawed feet. The birds flutter around her, filling the air with the susurrations of their beating wings. Loose feathers float in the heavy night air like snow flurries as Michelle stalks on silent feet over to the glass dome adorning the rooftop. 

She peers through the glass at the penthouse floor below, quickly pulling back when she spies a moving shadow in the room before cautiously approaching again.

“Planning on doing a little breaking and entering this evening, Spider?” a voice calls to her from behind.

Michelle spins around, her hand flying to her pistol in its holder.

The Black Cat smiles at her from under his half-mask, the lenses of his goggles glowing a vibrant green in the dark. He’s sitting perched in the outspread wings of one of the gargoyles, holding a hard-boiled egg in one gloved palm.

“Oh, so are _you_ following _me_ now? I hadn’t realized the rules of the game had changed,” Michelle says dryly, her hand still on her gun. She wonders, a little irked, why her spider-sense hadn’t warned her of his presence like it usually does.

“Not with malicious intent,” the Cat assures her, precisely peeling the shell from the egg with a single clawed finger. “You and I just happen to be pursuing the same mission.”

“And what’s that?”

“Revenge,” the Cat replies, slicing the egg in half.

“No,” Michelle immediately says. “I’m out for _justice._

The Cat shrugs, scooping out the yolk from one half of the egg with a flick of his tongue. “Justice, revenge...where does one end and the other begin?”

“Where your bullet enters a man’s head,” Michelle replies flatly. “If you’re here to kill someone again, I can’t allow you to do that.”

“Again?” the Cat says, sounding amused as he finishes off the egg. He hops down from the gargoyle and walks towards her, still smirking. Michelle’s hand tightens on the grip of her pistol.

“You want me to be a murderer so very badly,” he says, tsking. “It’s lazy detective work, trying to make the clues fit your assumptions instead of the other way ‘round. Sorry to disappoint you, but no one’s dying tonight, _im yirtzeh hashem_. I’m just here for information. I’m saving my bullets for a very particular skull.”

“The Goblin’s,” Michelle says, eyes narrowed behind the lenses of her mask.

The Cat grins. “Too easy. That should be obvious to anyone by now.”

“Why?” Michelle probes. “Why are you after him?”

The Cat tsks again, stalking even closer to her.

“You ask too many questions,” he says, sounding impatient now. “The clock is ticking, and the bodies are piling up. The bomb’s about to explode in your face, Spider, only you don’t see it yet.”

He leans in even closer, his goggles burning like green fire. “Remember that I tried to warn you. You never should have taken this case. You never should have gone to her apartment. You never, _never_ should have talked to May Parker.”

Michelle’s eyes narrow behind the lenses of her mask. “How do you know I spoke to May Parker?”

The Cat smirks at her. “The Goblin’s not the only one with eyes everywhere. You’ve been sloppy, Spider.”

He reaches behind his back for something in his belt. Michelle immediately whips her pistol out of its holster and points it at him, but the Cat merely holds up his other hand and grins at her before producing a notebook. He holds it up for her to see.

Michelle feels her heart stutter—it’s _her_ notebook, still splattered with the rusty brown stains of Harry Osborn’s blood.

“It would have been a real shame for this to fall into the wrong hands,” the Cat says, shaking his head like he’s disappointed in her. 

“Give it to me,” Michelle demands coldly.

The Cat grins again. “Finders keepers, sweetheart.”

He thumbs through the pages, his smile curling wider as he finds a photograph tucked between the pages. He plucks it out, holding it up between two fingers—a photograph of Johnny.

“What do we have here…” he murmurs. “You use this as a bookmark...how sentimental. How _stupid._ You’re smart but you got a soft heart, Spider. The people you love will always be a weakness. If you were really as brave and righteous as you pretend to be, you woulda cut them out of your life a long time ago. It’s the only way to _truly_ keep them safe.”

Michelle’s mouth has gone dry. Her hand tightens on her gun. “If you’re threatening me...if you’re threatening _him_...”

The Cat makes another impatient noise, tucking the notebook back into his belt and then shredding the photograph into tiny pieces, scattering them to the wind.

“I’m not threatening you,” he says, his voice surprisingly gentle now. “I’m cleaning up your mistakes. You better hope to God I’ve done a good job—the Goblin doesn’t like to leave loose ends.”

Michelle swallows, clenching her jaw and eyeing him warily. “What do you want from me?”

The Cat cocks his head, smiling. “Don’t you remember? You offered to help me once.”

Michelle’s eyes narrow again. “What do you need my help for?”

The Cat leans against the glass dome. “Let’s say we make an armistice for tonight. This building’s crawling with armed goons who’d love to put a few dozen holes in each of us. We can help each other—you scratch my back, I scratch yours.”

Michelle scoffs. “I don’t want your claws anywhere near me.”

The Cat smirks playfully. “I find that very hard to believe. You strike me as someone who gets a thrill out of danger. And these claws can be useful.” 

He turns towards the glass dome and presses a clawed finger to one of the planes of glass, carving silently and effortlessly along the frame.

Michelle raises an eyebrow under her mask. “Diamond tipped?”

“Wakandan vibranium,” the Cat replies, working his claws under the glass plane and pulling it up and out of its frame in a single unbroken piece.

“Stolen,” Michelle remarks flatly.

“Yes, but not by me. A gift from Anthony Stark. He’s a foul-mouthed alcoholic with a god complex, but he always pays well—my favorite kind of employer. The bigger the ego and bank account, the easier to manipulate, I’ve found. It’s a match made in heaven.” 

The Cat looks up at her. “So—what do you say? You and me, at the end of the world?”

Michelle clenches her jaw. “I don’t trust you.”

The Cat smiles. “Good. You can’t. You shouldn’t.” He cocks his head. “But you didn’t say no...”

Michelle runs her tongue over teeth, letting out a sharp breath through her nose.

“Fine. You and me,” she reluctantly agrees.

The Cat’s smile curls wider. “To Hell and back.”


	8. THE PRETENDER

“Tell me, Spider—what exactly do you hope to accomplish tonight?” 

Michelle glances over at the Cat, keeping her pistol at the ready as they make their way through the dimly lit upper floor of the Osborn building.

“I want answers,” she says shortly. Her spider-sense has been at a constant, tingling hum ever since they entered the building. She can feel the hair on the backs of her arms standing on end under her suit.

“Such as?” the Cat asks conversationally as he presses his back to the wall and produces a little mirror. He angles it to look around the corner.

“Two guards,” he murmurs to Michelle. “One holstered pistol, one short-barrel shotgun. Backs to us.”

“No killing,” Michelle reminds him, leaping up onto the ceiling.

She creeps around the corner, silently crawling along the ceiling until she’s directly above the armed guards. She thwips out two rapid-fire webs, gumming up the guns before dropping down onto the shoulders of one of the men. She catches his jaw in the angle of her elbow before he can even react, squeezing until he goes limp under her and falls like a felled tree.

The other guard frantically tries to free his webbed-up pistol from its holster. Michelle thwips out another web to cover his mouth before he can shout for help. He stumbles back a step but recovers quickly, abandoning the pistol and yanking a knife out of his belt. But the Cat is on him a split-second later in a blur of black, knocking the knife out of his hand with a sharp blow to his wrist before sending him senseless to the floor with an elbow to his temple.

“Well?” the Cat prompts, grabbing one of the unconscious men by the arms and dragging him behind the corner.

“I want to know what Harry Osborn told Ben Parker,” Michelle replies, lifting the other guard and carrying him over to join his companion.

The Cat straightens up, cocking his head. “And what do you think that was?”

“I think he told him who the Goblin really is,” Michelle says briskly, heading down the hallway.

She stops, her spider-sense going wild. She crouches against the wall, grabbing the Cat’s arm.

“More guards. At least five,” she tells him in a low voice, listening to the sound of their approaching footsteps. “They know we’re here.”

The Cat slips a little silver ball out of his belt. He taps the side of his goggles, and the green glow behind the lenses goes dark. 

“Close your eyes and keep your head down,” he says, right as the door at the end of the hallway bursts open and armed men spill through.

The Cat tosses the silver ball in their direction, almost lazily, like it’s a game. 

Michelle watches it arc through the air, a little red light flashing on its side. The Cat gracefully races after it, straight towards the men who all halt and point their guns at him, oblivious to the little silver ball landing in the midst of their feet. 

Michelle ducks her head, squeezing her eyes shut tightly, but even behind her eyelids she can see blinding flashes of light. She’s still disoriented even when the flashing ceases, blinking rapidly as colorful afterglows streak across her vision, listening to the sound of heavy blows being landed against flesh.

When her vision finally clears, she sees the Cat standing alone over a pile of sprawled bodies.

“You didn’t—“ she starts.

“They’re all alive,” he says, catching his breath. “I’m a thief, not a killer.”

“You’re a criminal,” Michelle says flatly, stepping over the unconscious men.

“So are you, technically speaking,” the Cat replies, grinning at her as he switches the green glow of his goggles back on. 

Michelle ignores him, peering into empty rooms as they continue down the hall. Her spider-sense is still humming, and she gives an irritated flick of her shoulders.

_Where are you hiding, Osborn?_

“If Harry Osborn does indeed tell you the Goblin’s true identity—what then?” the Cat asks. “What do you intend to do with this information?”

“Take it to the police.”

The Cat lets out a laugh. “The police? And what do you think the police are gonna do, Spider? Huh? Put your man away forever? Give you a shiny star? A lovely fantasy, sweetheart, but it ain’t ever happening. People like the Goblin don’t go to jail. _Justice_ is only reserved for us little people. Steal a loaf of bread to feed your family, get put away for ten years doing hard labor. Steal a few million dollars from a bunch of war widows and dock workers, they’ll name a library after you and put up a statue of your likeness in the middle of Central Park.”

“Then we have to keep fighting till that changes,” Michelle says firmly. “If someone wants to keep you down, you make them work to the bone for it.”

The Cat grabs her arm, stopping her and pulling her around to face him.

“I don’t think you get it, _Miss Jones_ ,” he tells her in a low, urgent voice. “You don’t just keep fighting the Goblin. This ain’t baseball—you don’t get three strikes. You get _one_ shot, and you better not miss, ‘cause if you do, it’s not just your death warrant you’re signing. He’ll come for _everyone_ you love, and when he’s slaughtered all of them, then and only then will he put you out of your misery.”

Michelle looks at him, her jaw clenching.

“I won’t do that,” she says. “I won’t become the kind of monster I try to stop. I have these powers. I could do terrible things with them if I wanted to. But I won’t. I _save_ people, even when they don’t deserve it. Even if they hate me, or want to hurt me. My father taught me that.”

The Cat exhales sharply, turning his head to look away from her.

“Ben Parker,” he says suddenly, fixing her once more with his luminous green gaze. “Do you know how he died?”

Michelle frowns, thrown off by this sudden switch in the track. “The police report said he’d been mauled by dogs.”

A brittle smirk turns up the corner of the Cat’s mouth. He shakes his head.

“It wasn’t dogs. It was Adrian Toomes,” he says. “You may know him better by his stage name from back when he toured with a circus sideshow—the Vulture. You know why they called him that?”

“No…”

“‘Cause he had a taste for raw, bloody meat. He’d eat pounds of it, in front of an audience—for their _entertainment._ ”

The Cat leans in closer, his voice barely more than a murmur. “He’d eat anything they threw him—beef, pork, chicken, horse, dogs...the bloodier the better. But what old Toomes _really_ had a hunger for was _human flesh._ And the Goblin is happy to give it to him, as much as he can eat.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Michelle asks, feeling chilled all over.

The Cat’s grip on her arm tightens, his tone turning urgent again. “‘Cause I want you to know _exactly_ the kind of monster you’re up against. You’re in over your head, MJ...take Johnny and leave the city. Get out and don’t come back. _Please._ ”

Michelle frowns behind her mask. “How do you—“

A noise interrupts her—a soft moan, from behind a closed door off the hall. 

Michelle pulls her arm free, her spider-sense tingling up and down her spine. She unholsters her pistol again, cautiously approaching the door while the Cat follows at her back.

She slowly pushes the door open, peering into the dark room. She spies the body of a man lying on the floor near a table, surrounded by empty bottles and the smell of blood. The man stirs, moaning again.

Michelle reholsters her pistol and hurries over to him, kneeling down beside him. His shirtsleeve is rolled up, his pale bare arm a mess of bruises and track marks and blood. There’s a needle still stuck in the crook of his elbow. Michelle pulls it out, sniffing it, but she can’t identify the substance it administered.

She turns the man over. The pale light filtering in through the blinds of the room’s wide window falls over the man’s slack face.

“Well, we’ve found Harry Osborn, but he's in no condition to tell us anything,” Michelle says unhappily. “Come on—we need to get him to a hospital.”

She straightens up, turning around and finding herself looking straight into the muzzle of a revolver.

“I’m sorry,” the Cat says, his voice breaking as he holds the gun inches away from her face. “I didn’t have a choice...he was gonna kill her.”

A bright white flash lights up the room before Michelle can say anything, her spider-sense screaming. She blinks, disoriented.

Two men come into focus, standing in the doorway—a huge meat-fisted hulk of a man in a dirty undershirt and canvas trousers, and a neat little man in a feathered fedora and tweed suit, holding a camera. He lifts it again and snaps another photograph.

Michelle flinches, holding up a hand to shield her eyes as she spreads her feet in a ready stance, her heartbeat racing, conscious of the gun still aimed at her head. The other men don’t seem to be armed...she’ll have to take the Cat out first, and then—

“Well, well, well…” a deep, rich voice booms out. “Look what the cat dragged in. The infamous _Spider-Woman._ You’ve been a dogged little thorn in my side for years now. It’s an _honor_ to finally meet you face-to-face.”

Another figure appears behind the two men standing in the doorway. They part to allow him through.

Norman Osborn steps into the room, a cold smile twisting up his thin lips.

“You. It was you all along...you’re the Goblin,” Michelle says flatly.

The corners of Norman’s lips twitch higher.

“I’m the mayor of this city,” he says. “And you’re a lawless vigilante, accompanied by a known thief and suspected murderer, trespassing on my property. Seems to me you’re the one in the wrong here.”

“I’m taking you in, Osborn. You’re finished. You’re reign of terror is over,” Michelle says stubbornly, grasping the grip of her pistol.

The Cat cocks his own revolver. 

“Don’t do anything stupid, sweetheart, or I’ll paint the walls with your brains,” he warns her. “You’re fast, but you ain’t fast enough to dodge a bullet at point blank range. You can’t fight your way outta this one. Put your pistol on the floor and kick it away. _Now._.”

Michelle looks at him, her jaw clenched so tight her teeth hurt. The Cat stares straight back at her through his green goggles, unwavering. 

“Be smart, Spider,” he says in a low voice.

Michelle stares hard at him for a moment longer, before reluctantly unholstering her pistol. She slowly sets it down on the floor, kicking it away from herself. The man with the camera darts forward to retrieve it.

Michelle straightens up, holding her hands above her head. Behind her, Harry moans again on the floor. Michelle glances over her shoulder at him, noting the grey tinge to his skin.

“Your son’s dying of an overdose,” she says, looking towards Norman again. “He needs to go to a hospital immediately to be treated.”

“My son bravely tried to fight off a pair of deranged vigilantes that broke into our home,” Norman says calmly, taking out a gleaming gold pocket watch and polishing its face with a square of silk. He returns the watch to his pocket and turns his gaze upon Harry, shaking his head and letting out a sigh. “Alas, he was killed in the tussle. _Murdered_ —by the Spider-Woman. A terrible tragedy, but perhaps now the citizens of this city will recognize the need to sweep these lawless, mask-wearing fiends from our beloved streets.”

Michelle frowns at him, her heart starting to race again. “What are you talking about?”

Norman ignores her question. He glances over at the man holding Michelle’s pistol, who has wandered over to stand beside Harry’s limp, sweating body. Norman nods to him. “Schultz.”

Shultz immediately points Michelle’s pistol at Harry and squeezes off two shots. 

Michelle flinches as the gun goes off, gasping in shock and horror as two red blossoms burst open on Harry’s chest. The young man makes an awful wet wheezing sound, writhing on the floor. Shultz silences him with a third bullet before turning Michelle’s own gun on her.

Michelle stares at Harry’s body, feeling wracked with waves of cold horror.

_He’s killed his own son...he shot him like a dog in the street...his **son**..._

_I want you to know **exactly** the kind of monster you’re up against..._

Michelle drags her gaze away from Harry’s bleeding body and looks at the Black Cat. He appears completely unmoved by the nightmare scene unfolding before him, his revolver still pointed at Michelle, his mouth a thin unyielding line under his goggles and half-mask.

Norman stalks up behind the Cat, a look of disgust twisting his features now. He snatches the revolver out of the Cat’s hand, then lashes out with a foot and kicks out the backs of the Cat’s legs, dropping him to the floor and forcing him to kneel. 

“Do you know what you do with a rabid dog?” Norman asks with a kind of cruel casualness, placing a hand on top of the Cat’s head and forcing it down lower. “You shoot it.”

He releases the Cat and wipes his hand on his coat, his lip curled in disdain. He heads towards the door, where the hulking man in the dirty undershirt still stands waiting in silence. Norman pauses there in the doorway, looking back at Michelle. “And what do you do when you find a spider in your home? You _crush_ it.”

He turns his attention to the other man, another cold smile twisting up his lips. “Sandman...put our intruders to sleep.”

The man lifts his meaty fists, cracking his knuckles as he advances on Michelle, his face frighteningly emotionless.

Michelle readies herself, putting her own fists up. She takes a swing at the Sandman the second he’s within range, her fist colliding with his jaw. 

It’s like hitting a bag full of wet cement. Michelle staggers backwards, pain radiating up her arm. The Sandman barely even flinches, shaking off her punch like a bull swishing off a fly, stalking towards her again. She takes another swing, harder, jabbing at his ribs this time, and she feels something pop in a white-hot explosion of pain in her hand. 

She ignores the pain, ducking under the man’s own heavy right-hook and peppering his head and sides with lightning-fast jabs, feeling her knuckles split open and her clenched fists grow slick with her own blood. She’s panting now, the hot damp air of her own breath catching under the material of her mask, her spider-sense a shrill, constant scream. She’s hitting him with everything she’s got and he just _won’t go down._

The Sandman blocks one of her punches and takes a swing at her, catching her with a blow to the side of the head. Light and pain explode behind her left eye like a supernova, her vision going white then dark.

She staggers sideways, blinking blood out of her eyes, managing to dodge another swing of the Sandman’s fist. He moves fast for a big man—unnaturally so, relentlessly pursuing Michelle as she ducks and weaves.

She makes a leap for ceiling, thwipping out a web as she does and webbing up the man’s arms. She flips backwards, landing on his shoulders and immediately clenching her thighs around his neck, squeezing his carotid artery with all her strength.

_Go down, you bastard,_ she silently pleads, the muscles in her legs burning from the effort of holding him as the man careens wildly around the room trying to throw her off. 

_Go down...go down...go—_

The Sandman rips his arms free of Michelle’s webbing with a roar, seizing her by the leg and throwing her off his shoulders with incredible strength. He slams her into the ground, knocking the air out of her lungs with a painful whoosh.

Michelle struggles to draw in a breath that won’t come, her lungs burning and stars dancing before her eyes. Her spider-sense is screaming even louder, impossibly louder, consuming her every sense. She tries to roll over to get away but the Sandman is already on her, overwhelming her like a force of nature, his fists steadily, tirelessly pummeling away at her face and head.

_When you get knocked down…_

Michelle hears her father’s voice drifting through the shrill buzzing inside her head as though from a great distance away…

_When you get knocked down...you always get back up again…_

Michelle puts up an arm, feebly blocking another blow. She swings her own fist blindly, feeling it get caught and engulfed in a giant hand. The hand squeezes cruelly, and Michelle cries out in pain.

_...if they want to keep you down, you make them work themselves to the bone for it…_

_Daddy, I can’t..._ Michelle pleads in exhausted despair, sinking down into the red mist surrounding her.

_You’re in over your head, MJ…_

Somewhere far, far, far away, someone is firing a gun…shouting. A scream.

_Help me._

The world goes black.


	9. ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I added a chapter. If you're at all familiar with my work and my total inability to accurately plan and outline a multichap fic by now, you shouldn't be surprised lmao <3

Michelle wakes to the sensation of something wet and rough rasping over her knuckles. She frowns, her fingers twitching against the rasp, feeling as if she’s sliding in and out of a dark, heavy cloud. Her entire body is throbbing, the pain most piercing on the left side of her face. 

She turns her aching head, her brow furrowed in confusion while the rasping continues across the backs of her fingers. She’s lying on something soft—a bed. The distant sound of music and the low murmur of faraway voices drifts up from below wherever she is, and can she smell a woman’s perfume, something familiar, something like...

“Onyx, you naughty little beast, stop that,” a voice scolds as a weight drops down beside Michelle on the bed.

The rasping stops. Michelle struggles to open her eyes, managing to peel open the right one. Her vision is fuzzy around the edges, and she blinks, trying to clear the haze away.

The figure of a woman slowly comes into focus, fussing over the sleek black tom cat she holds in her arms. Michelle realizes why the perfume had smelled familiar.

“Miss Hardy?” she murmurs, her lips feeling swollen and numb.

Felicia sets the cat down and leans over her, smiling. “The one and only.”

Michelle frowns again, trying to sit up, but Felicia gently pushes her back down. 

“You’ve been through the wringer, honey. Rest a little longer,” she says, dabbing at Michelle’s brow with a cool, damp cloth.

Michelle’s frown deepens as she feels the cloth touch her skin—her _bare_ skin. Her hands fly to her face, her heart stuttering as she realizes her mask is gone.

Felicia lays a soothing hand on Michelle’s head, smiling again. “Relax, kitten. Your secret’s safe with me. That’s what I do—keep people’s secrets.”

Michelle’s not sure she finds the idea of Felicia Hardy keeping her secrets very comforting, but the cat is out of the bag now and she doesn’t have a choice in the matter.

“How did I get here?” she asks.

“A friend dropped you off on my balcony,” Felicia replies. “He was very concerned about you.”

“A _friend?_ ” 

“The Black Cat.”

Michelle scoffs, the memory of the gun pointed at her face livid in her mind. “He’s not my friend. He’s burglar and a murder suspect.”

“Even Lucifer was an angel, once,” Felicia says mildly, gently lying the cloth over Michelle’s bruised left eye. 

Michelle lets out a humorless laugh. “An angel… _sure._ He tricked me. He delivered me right to the Goblin.”

“If he’d actually done that, you’d be dead right now,” Felicia says bluntly. “The Goblin doesn’t leave loose ends.”

“The Goblin…” Michelle murmurs, her head aching. “He’s Mayor Osborn…he’s been hiding in plain view this whole time.”

“Mayor Osborn, huh...just goes to show there are pretenders everywhere,” Felicia says, not sounding at all surprised by this. She straightens up. “Well. I suppose I owe you some bones. You’ve done your job and solved my case. You’re worth your weight in gold, Miss Jones.”

Michelle shakes her head, wincing. “No...I’m not done. I still don’t know _why_ Gwen Stacy was killed—and more importantly, her killer hasn’t been brought to justice. I have to go to the police.”

Felicia chuckles, darkly amused. “The police? They’re not gonna do anything, kitten. But don’t you worry—you’ve done your part, and Mayor Osborn _will_ be punished for his crimes.”

Michelle frowns at her again.

“This isn’t just about Gwen Stacy, is it, Miss Hardy?” she says. “I know you’re not telling me the full story...what’s your part in this? What did the Goblin do to you?”

Felicia looks away. “I promised to keep your secret. Let me keep mine, too. You’re already in more trouble than you realize.”

Michelle grabs her arm. “No. No more secrets. If I’m already in danger, then it doesn’t matter either way. I solved your case—I told you who’s behind the Goblin. This is the payment I’m demanding. I don’t want money—I want justice for Gwen Stacy. I want the _truth._.”

Felicia looks back down at her for a long moment, her expression unreadable, and then she reaches for the heart-shaped locket she wears around her neck. She opens it, holding it to show Michelle the two photographs within—a plump, sweet-faced baby on one side, and a handsome dark-haired man on the other.

“This is my Ben,” Felicia says with a small smile, pointing to the photo of the man. “Ben Urich. He asked me to marry him five times, and I always said no. But we didn’t need no piece of paper to prove we loved each other.”

She points to the photo of the baby. “And this is our little man, our Walter. I named him after my father. My little Wally...he saved me. Got me back on the straight and narrow, or near enough.”

“He’s beautiful.”

“He was,” Felicia agrees with a fond smile, her eyes gleaming with tears. “He died when he was two-years-old. Pneumonia. He had asthma, and the air’s so bad in the city, and...well. That was it.”

Michelle lays a hand on her arm again, gently this time. “Miss Hardy...Felicia...I’m very sorry.”

Felicia shrugs, her smile going tight and grim. “Bad things happen, kitten. That’s life. You roll with the punches, or they roll you.”

She looks down at the locket, tracing a finger around its edge.

“Ben, though...Ben took it real hard,” she continues quietly. “Drowned his sorrows in booze, then heroin...and the heroin lead him to the Goblin. Ben...he was real smart and capable, despite his problems. He moved up the ranks quick. But then...then he got in over his head. Witnessed things you can’t unsee. A secret can give you power, or it can be a guillotine hanging over your neck, depending on whose secret it is. And the Goblin...if you want to keep your life, you keep his secrets.”

“Urich didn’t, though, did he? He told you something,” Michelle guesses.

But Felicia shakes her head. “No. He always tried to keep me out of it—not that that mattered to Gobby. But I wouldn’t have had to hire your investigative services if he’d told me anything. No...no, he told Peter Parker.”

Michelle frowns, the gears slowly turning inside her aching skull. “Peter Parker?”

Felicia nods. “Ben told him how his uncle died—what the Goblin had that monster Adrian Toomes do to him. A moment of weakness—thought he was doing the kid a favor, but all he did was sign all our death warrants.”

Michelle’s frown deepens. Something is tugging at the back of her mind, pressing through the fog of pain—a memory, from her conversation with May Parker…

_…Peter had learned something about his uncle’s death...something that had disturbed him…_

_...do you know how Ben Parker died? It wasn’t dogs...it was Adrian Toomes…_

_...he was missing for five years...he went to live with a woman and her husband…he came home after the man died of a drug overdose..._

“Urich...did he die of a drug overdose?” Michelle asks slowly, a sudden chill running down her spine.

Felicia gives her a brittle smile. “That’s what the police report and the coroner’s official record state. I’d say the bullet that blew his brains out killed him before the drugs did. I had to clean it up. I still can’t stomach strawberry ice cream to this day.”

_You ever seen what the inside of a man’s head looks like? I have…looks like strawberry ice cream…_

It all clicks together so abruptly it takes Michelle’s breath away. She lets out a humorless little laugh, looking up at Felicia, her eyes gone hard.

“Peter Parker...he didn’t meet Gwen Stacy at Empire State, did he?” she says flatly. “He met her at your club…he lived here with you and Urich after he ran away from home. That’s how the Parkers are connected to this mess. Peter’s still alive—he’s the Black Cat. He faked his death...and you knew it all along.”

Felicia cocks her head to the side, the scar on her cheek twisting as a slow, menacing smile creeps across her face.

“You’re finally starting to figure it out now, aren’t you, kitten? I’m surprised it took you this long—but then, my darling Peter is _very_ good at what he does,” she purrs, smirking. “He learned from the very best, after all.”

She leans down to stroke the big black tom cat that’s wandered over to slink around her legs. 

“Yes, Peter lived with us. The silly boy was going to go after the Goblin all on his own after his uncle was murdered. Ben stopped him, brought him home to me. Our Wally was taken away, but God gave me a new angel. And I made sure that he had all the skills he needed to keep himself safe in this cruel, wicked world. My sweet angel...I just wanted to give him the life my son never got a chance to live. Me, and Ben, and Peter...we were a happy little family.”

Felicia scoops the tom cat up, fondling his ears while he rumbles like a motor in her arms, her expression gone brooding.

“But the Goblin— _Norman Osborn_ —wouldn’t let me have that...he stole, and stole, and stole from me. He murdered my Ben, and he hurt my Peter and made him leave me all alone. He tore our little family apart. So I had to send him a message. He surrounds himself with wolves and he thinks that makes him untouchable, but a cat has claws and teeth, too, and I know how to use them. So I did. I did to them the same they did to Gwen Stacy, one-by-one, so their boss would _know_ who’s coming for him.”

“You’re behind the murders,” Michelle says, her heart thumping against her sternum. “Gargan, Bench, Acuno, Kraven… _you_ murdered them.”

Felicia smiles again, shaking back her white-blonde hair.

“I just wanted to keep my family safe, Miss Jones. That’s what old Gobby fails to understand, you see...he loves nothing and no one but himself, and that makes him dangerous, but it makes him vulnerable, too. He thinks he can get rid of us like any common trash, but you can’t kill us just once. Us black cats have nine lives,” she says, pressing her scarred cheek to the tom’s sleek, broad head, her smile gone cold. “And it’s bad luck to cross us.”

“Felicia—whatever you’re planning, you know I have to stop you,” Michelle warns her. 

Felicia’s cold smile curls higher. “You’re welcome to try, kitten, but remember—a cornered animal is the most dangerous, and I’ve got nothing else to lose.”

***

Michelle stumbles up the stairs to her apartment, one hand pressed to her sore ribs, her mind still reeling from what Felicia Hardy had revealed to her.

Felicia had clammed up after her confession, resisting any further probing from Michelle. Eventually, someone had knocked on the apartment door, and Michelle had slipped away via the balcony before anyone else could witness her in Felicia’s apartment.

Michelle pauses at the top of the stairs, trying to catch her breath, wincing at the aching throb stabbing through her temples. The swelling in her left eye has gone down enough for her to open it to a slit, but her whole body still feels like one giant raw nerve. She needs to rest longer, to heal completely, but as so often happens that’s a luxury she can’t afford. 

_The clock is ticking, and the bodies are piling up._

As much as she hates to admit it, Felicia is right--there’s no point in going to the police. All Michelle has right now is Felicia’s private confession and her own eye-witness account of what happened inside the Osborn Building, and there’s no court in the land that would take the words of a masked vigilante seriously. 

That, and Osborn has manufactured “proof” that the Spider-Woman murdered his son.

Michelle grits her teeth, limping down the hall towards her apartment. She’ll have to worry about that later--right now, she needs to get ahead of Felicia’s plot. If the cops aren’t going to be a help, then she’ll have to rely on the press to sound the alarm, and this is exactly the kind of scandal Jameson thrives on. A corrupt mayor running the city’s biggest organized crime syndicate, and a murderous, conniving bombshell blonde...the Bugle will have a field day, Michelle thinks with a grim smirk. And once the more prestigious papers pick up the story, the Feds will catch wind of it, too. The Goblin will run out of places to hide and pockets to fill with bribes.

But to accomplish all that, she needs to catch the Goblin and Miss Hardy red-handed, and she needs lots of witnesses. She needs to call the Bugle, tip off Ned Leeds, then find Flash--

Michelle stops short, her train of thought coming to an abrupt, screeching halt as she reaches her apartment door. The door is opened just a crack, the lock broken from the outside. 

Michelle feels a rush of cold dread and alarm, her hand immediately going to her empty holster. She takes a breath and pushes the door open wider, looking into the dark foyer beyond, her heart racing and her spider-sense tingling.

She takes a few cautious steps forward, scanning the unlit rooms off the foyer. She turns the corner into the kitchen and her heart does a stutter.

There’s broken glass on the floor, and a smattering of dark stains. Michelle fumbles for the light switch, her hands clumsy with urgency and fear.

The light comes on, and she sees the splatters of blood all over the floor and smeared along the walls. Her heart is pounding in her chest now, bile rising in the back of her throat, her hearing deafened by the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears. She dashes across the kitchen and down the hall towards Johnny’s bedroom, her injuries entirely forgotten.

She stops in the doorway to the bedroom, a small, helpless sound escaping her as she looks inside. The room is a mess, the furniture overturned and more blood spattered on the walls, but Johnny is gone.

Michelle leans against the door frame, dizzy and panting, her legs gone weak.

_When the bad things happen...when the people you love get hurt...remember I warned you…_

_The Goblin doesn’t leave loose ends._

“Johnny…” Michelle whispers, her voice breaking.


	10. JOURNEY INTO FEAR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter after this one folks (I SWEAR)

Johnny is gone.

Michelle slumps against the doorframe and stares into the mess of the bedroom, sick with horror. She’s long been plagued by the fear that her dual life could bring harm to the people close to her, and now her worst nightmare has come true.

_You’re smart but you got a soft heart, Spider. The people you love will always be a weakness. If you were really as brave and righteous as you pretend to be, you woulda cut them out of your life a long time ago. It’s the only way to **truly** keep them safe._

The Cat’s words cut through her shock like a knife, a brutal thrust and twist that has her legs going weak. She stumbles forward, collapsing onto her knees next to the bed. She clutches at the blood-splattered sheets, her breath coming in shaky gasps, her whole body trembling from a mix of fear and pure, violent rage.

_I’ll kill him,_ she thinks. _I’ll kill him, I’ll—_

She hears the sound of soft footsteps coming to a stop in the doorway behind her. She takes a deep breath, then stands up.

“Hello, Peter,” Michelle says calmly. She turns around to face the intruder. “Or do you prefer I call you Ben?”

The Black Cat stands in the doorway and looks back at her through his luminous green goggles for a long moment. Then he reaches up and pulls the goggles and cowl off, revealing Ben Reilly’s familiar face.

“Did Felicia tell you?” he asks.

“No. I figured it out myself,” Michelle replies. Her mouth twists into a brittle smile. “You’re very good. You covered your trail meticulously, and only slipped up the once—you called me MJ at the Osborn Building. Only my friends call me that. Only my _lovers._ I understand, though. You were under a lot of pressure that night. Your aunt...is she safe?”

Ben— _Peter_ —wets his lips, nodding. “For now, yes. And I’m sorry for what happened. I never wanted you to get hurt like that, but it was the only way to buy time for my aunt to get away. I just had to hope you could take it till I could get you out of there.”

“Really?” Michelle asks harshly, some of her barely contained fury breaking to the surface. “Why should I believe a goddamn word you say?”

Peter shakes his head, offering her a pained smile, his eyes gleaming in the low light with unshed tears. “Like I said before...you can’t. You shouldn’t. But I’m asking you to take a chance with me.”

He slowly reaches for the holster on his belt, pulling out a pistol that Michelle immediately recognizes as her father’s Colt. Peter holds it out to her butt first, an offering.

Michelle steps forward and snatches it from him, checking the magazine before pointing it at his face.

“On your knees. Hands behind your head,” she demands coldly.

Peter drops down obediently, looking up at her impassively as Michelle takes another step closer to him.

She presses the muzzle of the pistol right between his eyes, pushing until his head is forced back at an angle.

“Is Johnny alive?” Michelle asks through clenched teeth, her voice breaking.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably,” Peter answers. “The Goblin knows you escaped. He doesn’t leave loose ends. Most likely, he’s using Johnny as bait to lure you back. The Goblin’s a monster and a sadist—he’ll want to kill Johnny in front of you before he finishes you off.”

Michelle lets out a short, sharp breath, almost a sob.

“If he wants blood, then I’ll give it to him,” she says fiercely. “I’ll tear him apart.”

“No, you won’t,” Peter says gently. “That’s not who you are. I can’t let you be the one to do that. You do something like that, and there’s no coming back from it.”

Michelle lets out a harsh laugh, pressing the gun harder into his forehead. “Is that why you’re here? To try to stop me? Did Felicia send you? Or the Goblin?”

“I’m not here to stop you, MJ.”

“Then _why_ are you here?”

“‘Cause I made you a promise,” Peter says, his eyes shining as he looks up at her. “I told you I’d go anywhere with you—to Hell and back. And because...because I couldn’t save her, but I thought...I could maybe still save you.”

Michelle looks down at him, taking a deep, quivering breath. Then she fumbles in a pouch on her belt, pulling out a scrap of folded paper. She hands it to him.

Peter takes it, a frown line forming between his brows as he unfolds it and looks down at the writing scrawled across it.

_To Gwendy, all my love forever and always, P._

“Did you kill Gwen Stacy?” Michelle asks, already knowing the answer, the one thing that she believes is true with her whole heart.

“No,” Peter murmurs, his voice barely more than a whisper as he stares at the scrap of paper cradled in the hollow of his palm. He folds his fingers over it and presses it to his chest, looking back up at Michelle with shining, grief-stricken eyes. “No...I loved her. And yes...she’s only dead because of me.”

Michelle pulls the gun away from his face, putting it in its holster.

“Come on,” she says. “We have a killer to catch.”

***

“Tell me we have a plan,” Peter says as he soars along the moonlit rooftops alongside Michelle, heading once more towards the looming spire of the Osborn Building. “And that we’re not just running headfirst into an awaiting trap.”

“Yes,” Michelle says simply, flipping over a water tank.

“And?” Peter prompts as he follows after her, but Michelle ignores him, and after a moment he sighs. “Okay, you’re not gonna tell me. Can’t blame you there. I wouldn’t trust me, either. May I make a suggestion, though? We rescue Johnny, pick up my aunt, and get the hell out of the city. I hear Paris is very nice this time of year.”

“We’re not going anywhere. If the Goblin gets away with his crimes, then there’s no justice for Gwen, or your uncle, or Ben Urich, or any of the other people the Goblin has hurt. I won’t allow that,” Michelle says. She comes to a stop, pushing her mask up to look barefaced at Peter. “And I don’t think you will, either.”

Peter takes a deep breath.

“No, I won’t,” he agrees.

“Come on, then,” Michelle says, pulling her mask back down before slipping an arm around his waist and thwipping out a web. 

They leap into the air together, swinging over the congested streets below to another building. Michelle can feel Peter’s heart beating, a steady, rapid thumping in his chest, and she holds him closer.

_We don’t lose anyone else tonight,_ she silently promises. 

_I don’t lose anyone else tonight._

They land lightly on the rooftop of a high-rise across from the Osborn Building. Michelle strides over to the ledge, peering down at the street below. It’s still packed with pedestrians and cars moving sluggishly through dense traffic, the beams of their headlights reflecting off the oily black asphalt.

Michelle spots Ned Leeds in the crowd in a smart fedora, his camera tucked under the lapel of his trench coat, trying to look inconspicuous and failing miserably. Betty Brant is doing better, standing on the curb like she’s waiting for a bus. Michelle spies Robbie Robertson, as well, and Flash milling about on the corner, the cherry of his cigarette burning bright against the shadow cast by the Osborn Building.

Michelle allows herself a grim smile, turning to face Peter.

“Everyone’s in place,” she tells him briskly. “I tipped off some reporters and a trustworthy cop before we left home. If we’re going to nail the Goblin to the floor, then we need to make a real show of it—make it so people can’t ignore it or brush his crimes under the rug. We’ll use the press like a sledgehammer.”

“And _how_ exactly will we do that?” Peter asks dubiously. “Norman Osborn has managed to keep his bad side out of the press for _years_ now.”

“Have a little faith, pal,” Michelle replies. She holds an arm out and rolls up her sleeve, showing him the neat web of wires that run under her suit.

“They connect to a small recording device,” she explains. “Ned Leeds built it for me. He’s quite the genius inventor in addition to being a fine reporter. Norman Osborn strikes me as a man who likes to gloat about his sadistic crimes, just to twist the knife. Let’s get him to talk. The Bugle will be happy to print his confession.”

The corner of Peter’s mouth quirks upwards. “You’re a real clever dame, Spider. Shame on me for ever getting on your bad side.”

“Shame on Osborn, as well,” Michelle says coldly. “He’ll live to regret his crimes. But first--we rescue Johnny.”

“We rescue Johnny,” Peter agrees. He steps up to the ledge beside her, pointing towards the Osborn Building. “They’re likely awaiting us in the penthouse. Our best bet is to get inside through the basement level.”

“How do we do that?”

Peter looks at Michelle, his lips curling into a smile. “I might have an idea...how strong are you, Spider? Strong enough to pull an average bank vault door off its hinges?”

“I think I could manage it,” Michelle replies, pressing her fist into her other palm and cracking her knuckles.

“Perfect.” Peter moves his arm to point at the bank beside the Osborn Building. “There’s a tunnel that connects the basement level of the Osborn Building to a vault in that bank—easy way for Osborn to funnel his dirty money back and forth. Easy way for us to get inside, too.”

Michelle cracks her knuckles again. “Let’s go, then.”

***

“I suppose I don't need to remind you not to kill anyone,” Michelle says as she and Peter make their way towards the end of the tunnel under the Osborn Building.

“I told you I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“What about the body you used to fake your death?”

“Dug it out of the potter’s field on Hart Island. Not one of my more enjoyable jobs, but I’d do anything to keep my aunt safe.”

Michelle looks over at Peter. “Does she know you’re alive?”

Peter’s jaw clenches, a shadow of grief flitting across his face. “No. I didn’t want to hurt her like that, but…when you love somebody, sometimes it’s kind to be cruel.”

Michelle cocks her head. “You told me I was a fool to let people get close to me.”

“Well. I’m not wrong. I’m just as much a fool as you are, is all,” Peter replies, offering her a small, brittle smile. “Probably worse than you. If I wasn’t the biggest fool in the world and knew how to take my own advice, I’d be somewhere far, far away right now, with a new alias, sipping champagne at a nightclub. But instead, I’m right here with you.”

“I’d go anywhere with you,” he adds, his eyes soft as he looks over at her.

Michelle smiles under her mask, reaching over to briefly grasp his hand and gently squeeze it as they finally reach a thick steel door at the end of the tunnel. 

“This must be it,” Peter says, pulling his mask and goggles down over his face.

Michelle takes her father’s pistol out of its holster, and then she presses her shoulder to the heavy door. It groans softly in protest as she pushes against it before giving away and swinging open.

“What the hell,” Peter says softly, taking a few slow steps forward into the dimly lit room beyond.

Michelle cautiously follows, her gun held at the ready. Her spider-sense is tingling up and down her spine, goosebumps pebbling her skin under her suit as she examines the many tables covered in flasks filled with strange liquid and rows of cages containing shivering white rats huddled in the rear corners, the black round beads of their eyes shining in the sickly yellow light cast from bare bulbs overhead.

“This is a laboratory,” Michelle murmurs, frowning. “What’s Osborn getting up to down here?”

“Nothing good,” Peter replies grimly, looking down at the grisly remains of a dissected rat pinned to one of the tables occupying the room.

Michelle wanders over to another table, her frown deepening as she spots what appears to be a journal lying on the tabletop. There’s a symbol embossed on its cover—a skull with six curling tentacles. She picks the journal up, flipping through its pages but finding that its contents are entirely written in German. 

“MJ,” Peter calls from where he stands in a narrow doorway, peering into another room beyond.

Michelle tucks the notebook into the back of her belt and walks over to join him. “What is it?”

“Harry Osborn,” Peter says quietly, pointing towards a table in the center of the small room beyond the threshold. A body lies upon it, pale and waxy under the bulbs.

Michelle walks over to stand beside the table, another frown knitting her brows together as she stares down at Harry’s lax face. 

“Poor kid never really had a shot at life, did he?” Peter says at her shoulder. “Murdered at his own father’s orders and then thrown down here on a cold slab in his old man’s house of horrors. Can’t help but feel sorry for him. What do you suppose they intend to do with the body?”

“I don’t know,” Michelle says, her eyes narrowing as she bends closer to the body. There’s an odd discoloration around the corpse’s neck, like poorly matched makeup. Michelle reaches out and rubs her thumb over it, her eyes narrowing even more as the waxy flesh wrinkles and peels away under her touch, leaving a bloodless seam. 

“What the hell?” Peter breathes out again as Michelle works her fingers under the seam and peels away the corpse’s entire face like a mask, revealing another face underneath.

“This isn’t Harry Osborn,” Michelle says flatly, looking down at the dead man’s real face. “This is Dmitri Smerdyakov—the Chameleon.”

“Guess I’m not the only cat faking his death. Curiouser and curiouser...Normie’s got more going on than just bootlegging, prostitution, and murder,” Peter muses. He takes hold of Michelle’s arm. “Come on—let’s get outta here. This place gives me the creeps.”

Michelle shares the sentiment, her skin crawling as she hurries with Peter towards the stairs at the end of the laboratory. Her need to find Johnny and get him away from this place feels more urgent than ever.

“Does it strike you as odd that we’ve yet to encounter any security, or even a janitor for that matter?” she asks later, a little breathless as they climb up yet another flight of stairs, winding around and around as they journey towards the penthouse floor. “This place was crawling with armed men the last time we were here.”

“Maybe the whole gang’s waiting to party with us upstairs,” Peter replies, puffing. He comes to stop, leaning against the wall. “This is bats. I can’t take another step. Maybe coming in through the basement wasn’t such a smart idea.”

He pushes away from the wall and plucks the grappling hook gun off his belt. He leans out over the stair rail, pointing the gun up towards a distant landing. He takes aim and fires, the cord of the grappling hook softly hissing as it rapidly unwinds before going taut.

Peter tugs on the line to check its security, then holds an arm out Michelle. She steps into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck as the retracting cord swiftly pulls them upward, zipping higher and higher until they reach the landing far above.

“That’s better. We’re only a few floors shy of our destination, now,” Peter says, unhooking the grip and reattaching the gun to his belt. He gestures to the doorway on the landing. “Shall we have a look around?”

“Let’s” Michelle agrees, taking her pistol out again. She cautiously opens the door, peering through it before stepping off the landing, leading with her gun.

It’s dark beyond the doorway, the only light coming from the illuminated city outside the windows. Michelle takes a flashlight from her belt, while Peter flicks on the green light of his goggles. 

The creep on silent feet down the hallway, peering into rooms as they pass them. Michelle’s spider-sense is tingling again, making her uneasy. The eerie emptiness of the floor sets her on edge even more, her grip tightening on her gun.

She peers around the corner into another dark room and draws in a sharp breath at the grisly sight that greets her there. The beam of her flashlight illuminates a heap of bodies, blood shining black around the corpses’ heads.

“Well. I’ve found where some of the armed guards have been,” she says in a low voice.

Peter comes to stand beside her, taking in the bloodied bodies.

“Damn it all,” he swears hotly, turning to face Michelle. “Felicia’s beat us to the punch. She’s already here.”

“We need to hurry, before she gets to the Goblin. All this is for nothing if she kills him before he can be tried for his crimes,” Michelle urges, grabbing his arm and tugging him along.

Peter follows only to stop short a moment later, his head tilted back to look up at something above their heads.

“Oh dear,” he murmurs, sounding for a moment exactly like his mild-mannered alter-ego Benji.

Michelle lifts the beam of her flashlight to follow his gaze. The circle of light falls upon a device tucked up in the corner of the building where the wall meets the ceiling, an ominous bundle of wires and metal tubing.

“Tell me that isn’t a bomb,” she says flatly, even as her pulse starts to race and her spider-sense screeches at her.

“I’m afraid that’s exactly what it is.”

“Do you know how to disarm it?” Michelle asks urgently, trying to shove down the bile-flavored panic rising in her throat. _Johnny…_

Peter blows out a breath. “Maybe, if I had enough time...problem is, I doubt this is the only one. Look where Felicia’s placed it—right at the corner of the building. I’ll bet you a million bucks we’ll find more in the other three corners, and around the central support beams. She’s gonna blow the roof off this joint.”

“Alright, change of plans,” Michelle says briskly, already trotting towards the stairwell. “We find Johnny and then get the hell out of here.”

“An excellent plan,” Peter replies, rushing right alongside her.

They take the stairs three-at-a-time up to the next floor, where the penthouse suite is. Michelle can feel her heart in her throat, a rapid thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings.

_I don’t lose anyone else tonight,_ she promises again, a silent plea this time. _Please, don’t let me lose anyone else._

They burst through the doorway off the wide landing, urgency making them reckless. Their lack of caution goes unpunished—they nearly trip over two more bodies as the press over the threshold, the dead men’s faces mangled and slashed and their rich red blood making the floor’s marble tiles slippery.

Michelle picks her way past them, holding onto the wall to keep from slipping in the gore. Her heart is beating so hard in her ears now she’s nearly deafened, but not enough that she doesn’t catch a soft, muffled sound coming from a room a few doors down, the pained utterance of a wounded man.

She rushes towards it, all caution be damned, skidding to a halt at the doorway and looking inside, her heart stuttering.

“Johnny,” she breathes, half-relieved and half-crushed.

Johnny lies on his side up against the far wall, his hands bound behind his back. There’s blood caked along his hairline, turning his blonde hair a muddy brown, and his face is swollen and bruised, but he’s _alive._

“Johnny,” Michelle says again, her voice breaking as she rushes to his side, dropping down to her knees and yanking her mask off. She lays a hand on his shoulder. “Darling…”

Johnny stirs, cracking open one swollen eyelid to squint at her.

“Shelly?” he mumbles. “Oh, hello, dear. I’ve had a hell of an evening. Have you come to rescue me? Sorry for the trouble.”

“Don’t apologize, you daft, darling fool,” Michelle replies with a fragile smile, tears pricking her eyes. Her smile fades as she looks him over. “You look terrible, J.”

Johnny gives her a lopsided grin, his teeth bloody. “You should see the other guy, kid.”

Michelle lets out a teary huff of laughter, only to be interrupted by Peter coming up behind her.

“This is a lovely reunion, but we really should be moving,” he says tersely.

Johnny squints at him, frowning. “Good God, is that the Black Cat?”

Peter responds by tugging his own mask off. Johnny’s eyes go wide.

“ _Benji?_ ”

“The name’s Peter, actually,” Peter says, bending to help Michelle get Johnny to his feet. “Peter Parker.”

“Peter Parker?” Johnny repeats, sounding even more confused. “The dead boy?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it when we get home, guy,” Peter promises, slinging one of Johnny’s arms across his shoulders.

Michelle takes Johnny’s other arm, and all together they start a slow shuffle out of the room, heading towards the elevator, only to find it without power.

“We’ll have to take the stairs again,” Peter says quickly. “Go down a few floors, and then we can get out through a window and swing across to a building across the street.”

Michelle nods, her heart in her throat again as she thinks about the literal ticking time bomb just below their feet.

“Sorry about this, J, dear, but we’re in a hurry,” she says as she hoists Johnny across her shoulders.

“Oh, you know me, peach, I don’t mind a bit of manhandling,” Johnny mumbles back, barely conscious.

Going down the stairs is blessedly easier and faster than going up them, even with her burden, and they race down flight after flight of the winding stairwell.

“Let’s try here,” Peter says breathlessly as they come to another landing. He starts for the door but Michelle yanks him back, her spider-sense firing away as the door bursts open and a trio of men spill through.

The first man raises a gun but Peter is on him in a flash, vibranium claws slicing through the gun and the man’s hand alike like a hot knife through butter.

“Go! Get out of here!” he shouts at Michelle while the wounded man howls and his companions throw themselves at Peter.

Michelle hesitates only a second, reluctant to leave him on his own but knowing she has to get Johnny to safety. She leaps over the railing and lets herself fall several stories, her ears ringing as a gun goes off loudly in the narrow space.

She catches herself one-handed on the stair rail far below, grunting as her shoulder pulls under the strain. She hauls herself and Johnny back onto the stairs, panting with adrenaline and exertion. She sets Johnny down, letting him slump against the wall as she rushes back to lean out over the railing to look up at the fight going on far overhead.

“Peter!” she shouts up. “Jump!”

He does, without question or hesitation, knocking the last man down with a punch to the throat before leaping over the rail and free falling through the air.

Michelle thwips out a web as he passes her, snagging him and bringing him to a slow stop. She swiftly hauls him up, pulling him over the rail and into her arms.

For the briefest moment they hold each other, nose-to-nose, panting into each other’s mouths. 

“You saved me,” Peter murmurs.

“I did,” Michelle replies, pulling him closer.

And then the door on the landing below is flying open, slamming with a bang against the wall as two more armed men rush out.

Michelle spins to face them, her own gun raised, and then—

**BAM. BAM.**

She flinches as two cracks of gunfire echo in the stairwell, amplified by the narrow space between the walls. The pair of men slump sideways, falling lifeless to the ground. Another man steps cautiously out onto the landing, his gun still raised at the ready.

“Flash,” Michelle says, breathless with relief.

Flash looks up at her, lowering his gun.

“Spidey. You okay?” he asks, warily eyeing Peter beside her. “What the hell is going on in here?”

“The upper floors of the building are rigged with bombs,” Michelle explains in a rush as she helps Johnny back to his feet. “They could go off at any moment. We have to get out of here and clear the streets and neighboring buildings.”

Flash’s eyes go wide, but to his credit he immediately takes her at her word. 

“What’re we waitin’ for, then? Let’s get the hell outta here,” he says, reaching to help her support Johnny.

Michelle starts down the stairs once more, and then stops when she realizes Peter isn’t following. She turns to look up at him, her eyes questioning.

He offers her a sad little smile. “I can’t go yet. I have to try to save Felicia. She’s still here. I know it.”

Michelle stares up at him for a moment, her heart thumping against her sternum. She nods.

“I’m coming with you,” she says.

Peter’s smile vanishes. “MJ, no—“

“Yes,” Michelle says firmly. “You and me—to Hell and back, remember?”

She turns towards Flash, gently pushing Johnny into his arms.

“He’s an innocent civilian, and he needs medical attention,” she tells Flash.

Flash gives her a nod, pulling Johnny’s arm over his shoulders. “I’ll take care of everything on the outside.”

“Thank you.”

Michelle presses a hand to Johnny’s cheek, offering him a teary-eyed smile from behind her mask. “See you later, J.”

Johnny smiles at her, his own eyes shining, turning his head to kiss her palm. “See you soon, peach.”

Michelle lets him go, stepping back to watch him hobble away with Flash.

Peter comes closer to her, slipping his hand into hers.

“You and me,” he murmurs.

Michelle takes a breath, nodding as she squeezes his hand. “You and me.”


	11. DEAD RECKONING

They find Felicia in the Osborns’ penthouse suite, in a large study situated in the corner of the building. She’s dressed all in white again, but the diamonds and furs are gone, replaced by a blood-splattered tactical suit and a gleaming mask that covers her scarred face.

She’s not alone—she stands facing Norman Osborn, who sits behind a large ornate desk, his face twisted into ugly, snarling sneer that makes him resemble his criminal moniker more than a man. Felicia keeps a pistol trained on him, unmoved by his cold glare.

“Hello, kitten,” Felicia says calmly as Michelle steps into the room. “If you’re here to stop me, you’re already too late.”

“We’re not here to stop you, Felicia,” Peter says as he comes in behind Michelle. “We’re here to save you.”

Felicia’s eyes move behind her mask, flicking in his direction, the tiniest crack in her emotionless facade.

“It’s too late for that,” she says in a brittle voice, her hand tightening on her gun. “I’ve already dug my grave. Now I’m gonna see this demon straight to hell where we both belong.”

Norman sits back in his chair, letting out a dark, cold laugh.

“Poor Felicia...you really are desperate enough to do it, aren’t you?” he says, smirking. “Pathetic, broken little thing...you know, I always had some regret over having to butcher Urich. He at least was useful, before he lost his nerve. But you...you’re not worth the bullet I’m going to put through your pretty skull.”

“This isn’t about me,” Felicia says, just as coldly. “Not anymore. It’s over for both of us. I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone else.”

“Felicia, put the gun down and come with us,” Peter says, taking a step closer to her.

The Goblin looks over at him, his lip curling in disgust. “And _you_...I won’t even waste a bullet on you. I’m going to give you to Toomes, like your dear old uncle and your pretty blonde girlfriend, and then I’m gonna feed your bones to my dogs.”

“You’re not gonna touch him,” Felicia hisses, her voice promising violence.

Peter takes another step towards her, ignoring Norman. “Felicia...just come with me. Leave him and let’s go.”

“Go home, honey,” Felicia replies, unwavering. “Take the girl with you and go home while you still can. This monster will never bother you again.”

“I will go home, but you have to come with me,” Peter pleads, his eyes shining. “Please. Benny and Gwen are gone. This isn’t gonna bring them back. But I’m still here, and I want you to come with me. We can be a family again, Felicia.”

“You go home right now, baby,” Felicia says, her voice shaking now but her gun hand holding steady. “It’s too late to stop this. You got your whole life ahead of you. I’m gonna make damn sure of that.”

“You don’t have to do this, Miss Hardy,” Michelle urges. “We have evidence that will put Osborn behind bars for the rest of his life.”

Norman turns his sneer on her. “The only ones going to prison are the lot of you.”

Michelle meets his sneer with a cold look of her own, the blank lenses of her mask menacing in the dim light. 

“You’ve just confessed to ordering the murders of Ben Urich, Benjamin Parker, and Gwen Stacy. That alone would be enough to get you the chair. And where’s your son, Osborn?” she asks in a frosty tone. “Where’s Harry? Why was the Chameleon lying dead on an autopsy table, wearing his face?”

Norman’s face grows dark with fury. “My son--”

“Are you working in allegiance with Nazi Germany, Mayor Osborn?” Michelle continues, cutting him off. She pulls the journal she took from the basement laboratory out of her belt, fanning the pages. “I’ll admit I can’t read German any better than I can ancient Greek, but I suspect this little book is _full_ of very interesting secrets...I can only imagine the kind of scandal that will ensue when the press find out the mayor of New York City is violating the Neutrality Act.”

She snaps the journal closed. “You got sloppy, Gobby. I know how dangerous it can be to leave your notes lying around where anyone can pick them up. You’ll live to regret your hubris and carelessness.”

Norman’s face has gone bone-white now, but his lips stretch into a rictus grin.

“You little fool...you have no idea what you’re meddling with.The only regret I have,” he says, his voice quivering with fury, “is not killing you right the first time, Spider.”

He lunges suddenly to his feet, pulling a gun out from under his desk. Peter shouts in warning, diving towards Michelle to knock her out of the way. 

But the Goblin is swinging his arm towards Felicia. He fires the gun a split second before Michelle is able to shoot off a web and snag it from his hand.

Felicia stumbles backwards until she collides with the wall, doubling over and pressing her hand to her stomach, where a red blossom is rapidly spreading across her white suit.

“Felicia!” Peter cries out, leaping to his feet and rushing towards her, only to fall to his hands and knees a second later as a loud boom violently shakes the entire floor and shatters all the windows.

Michelle lets out a choked gasp, her spider-sense a screaming jolt racing up and down her spine. She can smell smoke and see it rising up in sinister billowing columns outside of the windows. 

_The bombs._

The floor gives another terrifying shake, the steel beams within the walls groaning ominously. Michelle can see the reflection of flames in the smoke now, the black clouds tinged with dancing streaks of orange. She pleads with any divine powers who may be listening that Johnny and Flash got out in time.

“What—what have you done?” Norman snarls at Felicia, gripping his desk for support as the floor below their feet rumbles and chunks of ceiling begin to fall from overhead. 

Felicia starts to laugh, a cold, manic sound. She straightens up against the wall, where ribbons of flame have started to lick stripes up the wallpaper. The flames dance in her shining eyes as she reaches up with a bloodstained hand to remove her white mask. Her hair stands on end, her head wreathed in flames and smoke as she looks at the Goblin, her scar twisting as she grins.

“I told you, Norman—I’m taking you to Hell,” she replies, sounding gleeful and tortured all at once. “This is your funeral pyre, darling. We’ll burn together, forever.”

“You filthy _whore_. I’ll kill you first,” Norman says, his face twisted into something inhuman and deranged as he lunges around the desk towards her. 

But before he can reach her, the floor suddenly shudders and then splits open like a maw under his feet. Norman stumbles and falls, sliding down into the opening, his face now full of terror as he scrabbles at the crumbling flooring.

“Help me, please!” he begs, turning wide eyes on Michelle.

Michelle scrambles to her feet, ducking as a burning beam falls from above, narrowly missing her. The air is thick with smoke now that stings her eyes and throat and she can feel the intense heat of the fire burning up through the soles of her boots. She pushes all of that aside and swallows down her fear as she thwips out a web that snags hold of Norman just as he loses his grip and begins to fall into the fiery chasm.

Michelle plants her feet and starts to pull on the web line, only to let out a startled cry as the silk goes abruptly loose in her hands, the fibers burned away by the flames. She can do nothing but watch in horror as Norman slides backwards into the leaping tongues of fire shooting up through the gaping hole in the floor, his final howl of terror and agony ringing in her ears as he vanishes into the inferno.

A hand grabs tight onto Michelle’s arm, startling her out of her shock. 

“Come on—the floor’s gonna collapse. We gotta get outta here,” Peter urges, pulling her away by her hand.

She follows him through the thick, swirling smoke, coughing and choking.

“Where’s Felicia?” Michelle gasps out, blinking smoke out of her eyes.

“I’ve got her,” Peter replies, pulling Michelle over to a window. 

Michelle climbs up onto the sill, looking down into the city below. She can make out the lights of fire engines flashing through the haze of smoke that wreathes the Osborn Building.

“Come on,” Michelle says, turning back to Peter. “We’ll have to jump. I’ll catch us.”

She looks around, frowning.

“Where’s Felicia?” she asks again.

Instead of answering, Peter steps closer to her. He reaches out to lift up her mask, then leans forward and kisses her, deep and tender.

Michelle closes her eyes, leaning into the kiss, her hands cupping his face. And then she hears the click of his grappling gun being fired and the rapid hushing sound of its cord unspooling.

Michelle jerks her head back, alarmed.

“What are you doing?” she asks, even as the realization is dawning on her.

Peter smiles at her, his eyes shining with tears as he clips the grappling gun to her belt and takes a step back. “Saving you.”

“Don’t—“ Michelle starts, her heart racing, but Peter is already kicking her out backwards through the window

“ _Peter!_ ” she shouts as she falls backwards. 

For a moment she can see him standing in the window, surrounded by flames, and then she passes through a billowing cloud of smoke that obscures the top floors of the building from her sight.

The cord of the grappling hook goes suddenly taut, pulling sharply at her belt and knocking the breath out of her lungs. She swings sideways in an arc and slams hard into the brick facade of a building across the street.

She hangs there, winded, her wide eyes staring up at the burning torch of the Osborn Building, her pulse a rapid drumbeat in her ears.

_Please._

Her vision goes blurry with tears as she watches the top floors of the building collapse in on themselves in a chaotic crush of fire and smoke and tumbling debris. She takes a shaking breath as she tears her gaze away from the destruction and turns her attention to the firemen and cops shouting at gawping pedestrians below. She fumbles the grappling hook free of her belt with trembling hands and then crawls down the side of the building, dropping into the crowded street strewn with rubble.

Michelle numbly aids the cops in clearing onlookers from the streets as more debris falls from overhead, her eyes roving over the faces of everyone in the gathered crowd, searching for Peter’s familiar face, clinging to a tiny, fragile hope that grows dimmer with every passing minute.

She’s just finished weaving together a netting of web silk above the street to catch falling wreckage when she hears someone calling to her.

“Hey! Spidey!”

Michelle turns and spies Johnny limping through the crush of policemen and firefighters and onlookers, his head wrapped up in gauze. He holds his arms open for her as he hobbles towards her, smiling.

“Johnny,” Michelle breathes. She stumbles towards him in a rush, clumsy from grief and bone-deep fatigue. Johnny seizes her up in a fierce embrace, his cheek pressed to the top of head.

“Shelly! Oh, you’re alive,” he says, sounding as relieved as she feels. “Are you alright?”

Michelle doesn’t answer, keeping her face pressed against his chest. 

“Shelly?” Johnny says again, softer, leaning back to look her in her masked face, his brows knitted together in concern. “What’s wrong?”

Michelle takes a quivering breath.

“I couldn’t save him,” she says quietly.

A look of understanding passes over Johnny’s face, followed by a shadow of sorrow.

“Oh, Benji…” he murmurs, shaking his head sadly. He holds Michelle’s head in between his hands and presses a tender kiss to her forehead before wrapping her up in a hug again. Michelle leans into him, laying her head on his chest to listen to the steady drumming of his heartbeat, her eyes full of tears again.

_I’d go anywhere with you, MJ. To Hell and back._

_Then come back,_ Michelle silently pleads, knowing that wherever Peter is, he isn’t likely to hear her.

Johnny leans back again after a moment, chucking Michelle under the chin and offering her a small, sad smile.

“Chin up, kid,” he tells her gently. “That’s all you can do—keep your chin up and keep going. Even heroes get knocked down sometimes.”

_But we always get back up again._

Michelle nods, blinking away her tears before slipping her hand into his. “Let’s go home, J. I could use a long soak in the bath before I write my story for the Bugle.”

Johnny lifts her hand to his lips to kiss the backs of her smoke-singed fingers. “A marvelous idea, love.”

Michelle casts one last look over her shoulder at the fiery spire of the Osborn Building as she and Johnny walk away.

 _Wherever you are, Peter Parker, I hope you’re at least at peace now,_ she thinks, striding down the street.

She and Johnny are only a few blocks from home when a sweating, red-faces man comes running towards them, frantically waving his arms.

“Hey! Hey, ya, Spider-Woman!” he pants out as he trots up to them. He jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Some mooks are down the block robbing my neighbor’s jewelry store while the cops are all tied up with whatever the hell’s happening at the Osborn Building. They’re casing the whole joint.”

Michelle turns to Johnny. “Sorry, J. Duty calls.”

Johnny kisses the back of her hand again, grinning. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Michelle smirks behind her mask before thwipping out a web and pulling herself up to the rooftop of a building, pushing aside her exhaustion and sorrow as she races towards her next battle on behalf of the neighborhood.

The moonlit rooftops belong to her, and all the little souls who shelter beneath them are under her protection. And anyone who wishes to do evil in this city better be ready to put up their fists and fight.

****EPILOGUE: LOVE FROM A STRANGER****

“The _Times_ picked up your story about the Osborn scandal,” Ned says, sitting in the chair opposite Michelle’s desk, a smug smirk on his face. “Jameson’s been alternating between bragging about getting the scoop first, and working himself into a froth over the fact that the _Times’_ story is getting more national traction.”

“I don’t know what else he expects to happen,” Michelle says dryly. “If he wants to be taken as seriously as the _Times,_ he needs to stop printing lurid gossip about Anthony Stark.”

Ned snorts. “No way that’ll happen. That’s the Bugle’s bread and butter. That, and the Spider-Woman’s evil escapades.”

Michelle glances up at him, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Speaking of which...I heard the police and fire captain finished their investigation of the Osborn Building...any leaks about what they may have found in the basement level?”

“They found nothing.”

Michelle’s eyebrows leap up. “ _Nothing?_ ”

“Whole basement level was torched to cinders and ash in the explosion. Pretty curious, considering fire burns _upwards_ and the lower and middle floors were untouched.”

“Is that so,” Michelle replies flatly, sitting back in her chair. “Very curious indeed.”

She opens a drawer in her desk and pulls out the journal she’d taken from the Osborn Building’s underground laboratory. She hands it across the desk to Ned. “Is that symbol on the cover familiar to you?”

Ned frowns down at the embossed image of a tentacled skull. “Can’t say it is, Em.”

Michelle nods. “I don’t suppose you know any trustworthy soul who could translate German, do you?”

“I think I could find someone,” Ned says confidently.

Michelle smiles at him. “Good. I think there’s a lot more to this story yet to be told.”

***

Michelle leaves work early and takes a bus into Queens. She makes her way to a quiet street in Forest Hills and then up to the door of a little house. She knocks, and then waits there on the tidy stoop.

After a moment, the door opens a crack and May Parker’s face appears, peering out. She smiles when she sees Michelle, opening the door wider.

“Miss Jones,” she greets. “I’d say this is an unexpected visit, but then all kinds of curious things have happened this week.”

Michelle smiles back at her. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Parker. Might I come in for a bit?”

May steps back, motioning her through the door. “Of course, dear.”

“I read your article about Mayor Osborn,” she tells Michelle as they settle at the table in the neat little kitchen. “You have too much talent for that rag. I hope Jameson pays you a proper wage.”

Michelle smiles. “He pays me as well as any of his other reporters, which is to say not well at all. But I’m employed, which is more than a lot of  
folks can say right now.”

May gives a grim little laugh, shaking her head. “Well. An unfortunate truth. I look forward to a day where F.E.A.S.T. is no longer a necessity.”

She looks across the table at Michelle. “I suppose you’d like to further discuss Mayor Osborn and his involvement in my husband and nephew’s murders. I’ve had a string of reporters come by this week, but I’ve turned them all away. Except you. I know you’ll do their story justice.”

“I was actually wondering if I might talk to you again about Peter’s life,” Michelle replies. “I’ve learned some new information about him, details I chose not to include in my story out of respect for his privacy and yours. But I think you deserve to hear them.”

May’s face softens as she smiles. “I’d like that very much, Miss Jones.”

***

“Susie told me she and Reed are thinking about purchasing the Osborn Building and fixing it up,” Johnny says around a mouthful of toast, his morning paper propped up against his coffee mug.

Michelle stirs sugar into her tea. “Oh?”

“Yep. They have grand designs on expanding the Future Foundation. Reed wants to build a rocket to go to the moon, can you imagine?”

“Stranger things, dear.”

“Well, I think the good doctor has his head in the clouds,” Johnny says. “Although, I have to say I wouldn’t mind taking a ride on a rocket.”

Michelle smiles into her mug as she sips her tea. “Of course you wouldn’t, you speed demon.”

Johnny grins at her. “A harmless vice.”

Michelle snorts softly. “Sure, darling, until the day you crash and go up in flames.”

“Hm, good point. Not sure that’s how I’d like to leave this mortal coil, especially after nearly being blown to bits,” Johnny muses. “Not sure how I feel about Susie and Reed buying the Osborn Building, either. That place is too full of ghosts for me.”

Michelle takes another sip of her tea, silently agreeing with him.

“You know, I always felt like something was off about Benji,” Johnny continues, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Michelle quirks an eyebrow, smirking.

“Oh? Did you, dear?” she says dryly. 

“Yep. It was the hair—I know a bottle blonde when I see one. Lotta expensive upkeep for that dye job. Why would a tabloid photographer go through with that?”

“Well, now we know why,” Michelle says shortly, staring down intently into her tea.

Johnny looks across at her, his expression going tender. He reaches over to grasp her hand. “I’m sorry, Shelly. I know how badly you wanted to save him. And if it’s any comfort, then I think, in a way, you did.”

Michelle nods, offering him a small, teary smile. “It’s alright. We’ll be alright.”

She takes a breath and stands up. “I better go get dressed for work. Jameson isn’t giving me any slack, even after my big story.”

Michelle makes her way to her bedroom, closing the door and taking a moment to compose herself before she goes to sit at her vanity. She reaches for a bottle of perfume and then pauses with her hand outstretched, catching sight of something in the reflection of the mirror.

She stands up and turns around, barely breathing as she approaches her bed. There’s a single red rose lying on her pillow, its petals plump and fresh and dewy.

Michelle picks it up and wanders over to the bedroom window, finding it unlatched. She twirls the rose by its stem, a smile slowly curling up the corners of her lips as she looks out over her city.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I live for comments. You can also find me on tumblr as [groo-ock](https://groo-ock.tumblr.com)


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